Apartheid, a political system created exclusively to benefit the Whites, was statutorily erased in 1994 and the political tide turned on the Afrikaners in general. A specific negative outcome is the continuing cry, since 1994, by some Black victims and Black politicians for various forms of revenge and compensation from Afrikaners. The focus is on Afrikaners in general for their participation in and benefits from apartheid and on a certain group of Afrikaners specifically for committing apartheid crimes.1-7

Why is there this negative preoccupation with the past?

The cycle of reaction and counter-reaction involving the Afrikaners and the Blacks and the continuous White-on-Black discrimination followed by Black-on-White discrimination, is a phenomenon not often addressed or referred to by researchers or the present-day Black regime. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) missed out on the opportunity to address it thoroughly because of its one sided and subjective aim to cleanse only Afrikaners from their apartheid’s sins. The complexity of South African politics and the structures of racism, discrimination, colonialism and Black empowerment asks for more than the emotional catharses of forgiveness for political and personal deviant behaviour by individuals and groups that characterized the TRC-proceedings. The end result of the TRC left many Black persons with personal, emotional, psychological and financial difficulties rooted in apartheid, unsatisfied and aggrieved. The same goes for those Afrikaners outside the main stream of nationalist Afrikaners who were affected by the NP-AB-DRC alliance’s policies and discriminative actions.4-7

The deadly cycle of injustices, prejudices, hate and revenge that is a reality in every society and practised every day by all individuals and groups in some way, was not addressed by the TRC. The TRC did not address the devastating impact that this vicious cycle can have on people’s lives and their participation in society and did not acknowledge that this cycle is extremely difficult to break.1, 5-8

There are various examples of behaviours by Afrikaners towards Blacks during apartheid that are regarded as atrocities that justify revenge and retribution by the Blacks against Afrikaners. There is a constant repetition of this information and reinforcement of the history by anti-Afrikaners in an effort to maintain revenge in the minds of certain elements in the Black population. In the last four years, there seems to be a renewed emphasis on apartheid wrongdoings and the role of Afrikaners in it from the side of the ANC top management. Jacob Zuma uses this rhetoric at public political meetings in his effort to survive his beleaguered leadership and to mobilise the masses of lower, poorer ANC supporters so that he would be able to outlive the effort to oust him. At times incorrect historical facts about the Afrikaners and apartheid are offered up as the truth. This creates a certain sentiment among the Blacks and it has obtained momentum of its own with time, specifically when it is supported and propagated by prominent leaders inside the ANC. Myths and lies have become facts and truths without any data to substantiate it, especially when emotional and political rhetoric become intertwined and started to overshadow logical reasoning.9-17

A whole range of generalizations form part of these allegations, for instance the allegation that Afrikaner men frequently sexually exploited Black women, the exaggerated accounts of Whites stealing land from Blacks and that there was a silent “genocide” of the South African Blacks by the Afrikaners. These kinds of allegations not only reflect a lack of knowledge of the country’s history, especially with regard to genocide, but also contribute to racial conflict and intensify the distance between Black and White.18,19

The tendency at the moment is that whatever political problems the ANC have failed to solve since 1994, even if they are not related to apartheid, are projected on Afrikaners and ‘the legacy of apartheid’ to draw the attention away from the incompetence of the current government. Blacks are constantly reminded of the dangers of White empowerment. The intention of the ANC strategists is clearly to keep the Afrikaner and apartheid a communal enemy for as long as possible to assure Black unity between the many Black tribes. The main reason for mass poverty of the Blacks, a problem that has only been growing since 1994 as a result of poor ANC government, is simply linked to apartheid and the Afrikaners’ financial exploitation of Blacks. The current buzz over White monopoly capital that must be transferred back to Blacks is a good example. These ideas on the reasons for poverty have been firmly established among rural ANC supporters. As an impoverished and uneducated group, they are often not able to see the complexity of the truth. It has also found fertile ground among middle and higher classes when coupled with focused anti-Afrikaner rhetoric. The “White danger” and “White problem” associated with apartheid is kept alive to inspire revenge and retribution thinking.11,12,14-17, 20

Cries for revenge for the injustices surrounding apartheid are still prominent among some Blacks, even after 23 years of the independence from statutory apartheid. Many Blacks still mourn loved ones who were mistreated or killed by the apartheid managers and their accomplices. Many struggle to escape the impoverishment they suffered at the hand of White regimes, especially by the nationalist Afrikaners after 1948. These negative feelings, emotions and thinking are not limited to the poor, lower socio-economic Black classes who form the majority of Blacks, but is also reflected more and more in present-day by the Black upper classes as well. Most feel that there has not been real legal, civil and financial transformation and correction after 1994 to rectify wrongdoings of Whites on Blacks during apartheid. This negative and unbounded psychological energy manifests in various problematic and conflict behaviours in today’s South Africa.4,5,20-22

Dr Albertina Luthuli (daughter of the late Chief Albert Luthuli) says that the present flood of racial polarizations could be expected, because she believes the past cannot just be forgotten to suit the needs of the Whites who want to survive in South Africa. The TRC failed in its attempt to bring the past to the present.7 For many Black persons who had been wronged by the apartheid system, there seems to be no future in South Africa if the past is not first addressed.4,5,7 These persons still seem to think about rectification of the past as a process of revolution, a forced and physical correction of the past. They are caught in the Castro thinking of the 1960s23, p. 12: “…a revolution is a struggle between the future and the past…”. They want to exorcise the past in a way that will constitute full-blown revenge for apartheid instead of reconciliation.

The aim of this article is to research the vicious circle of revenge and counter-revenge around apartheid.

This article is the fifth in a series of seven. The seven articles address the following research topics:1) who is the Afrikaner? 2) the historical determinants and role players in the establishment and reinforcement of racial and ethnic discrimination in the mindsets of Afrikaners; 3) present and past negative determinants and role players in the establishment and reinforcement of injustices in the mindsets of Afrikaners; 4) the Afrikaners’ failure to understand, accept and appropriate the indigenous realities of South Africa; 5) the vicious cycle of revenge and counter-revenge around apartheid; 6) preparedness of Afrikaners to deal with the threats and challenges of the new South Africa; 7) 2017 is the time for thinking, planning and action.

The overarching intention of the total study is to determine the position of the Afrikaners in the year 2117.

Method

The research was done by means of a literaturereview. This method has the aim of building a viewpoint based on evidence as the research process develops. This approach is used in modern historical research where there is a lack of an established library on a certain topic, like the Afrikaner’s present and future position in South Africa. The databases used were EBSCOHost and Sabinet online. Sources included books for the period 1944 to 2017 and newspapers covering the period 2016 to 2017 to reflect on the Afrikaners and to put the thinking trends, views and opinions on the Afrikaners in perspective.24-26

The research findings are presented in narrative format.

Results

3.1 The desire for revenge after 23 years of freedom

After 1994 South African needed a true process of cleansing to rid it from the negative remnants of apartheid. Such a process does not only entail the shaking of hands, the washing of feet, the crying on shoulders or tearful public confessions, but constructive action in the form of criminal prosecutions of apartheid leaders, their immediate accomplices and where applicable, also of some of the nationalist Afrikaner supporters of the National Party (NP), the Afrikaner Broederbond (AB) and the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). Bringing only persons like Eugene de Kock to book and making him the chief culprit or to pin political murders on the members of the Civil Cooperation Bureau, was a brilliant move by nationalist Afrikaners of the NP-AB-alliance to save their own skins by sidestepping true penance. However, this did not fool the Black masses. It only contaminated an already explosive racial situation and started to spill over to the racial relations of new South Africa. Many of the present Black discriminations and fixation on apartheid and Afrikaners are rooted in on the idea of apartheid as extended colonization and not as Afrikanerism, something unique to the nationalist Afrikaners.6,7,27-29

The nationalist Afrikaner leadership of the NP-AB-DRC alliance just continued with their lives after 1994, undisturbed, padded by excellent apartheid pensions and other apartheid benefits, citizen rights and comfortable livings, and even in some cases new honours. The Blacks who they directly and in-directly harmed financially and psychologically, are still struggling. In addition to failing to embark on comprehensive criminal prosecutions to send the apartheid culprits to jail, there were also no efforts by the state to repossess the properties and assets of these culprits to compensate those they have injured emotionally or financially.4,6,7, 28, 29

Current South African literature, especially newspaper reports, clearly shows that many Blacks are still waiting for justice. They are bemoaning the incompleteness of the transition that let to the 1994 dispensation and the Constitution of 1996. Some individual Blacks and people within the ANC have embarked on forms of revenge and equalization, sometimes openly and sometimes hidden. Direct discrimination and hostility like the high number of farm murders and other murders on Whites, work discrimination in the form of BEE, etc., are just a few examples of revenge. The current rhetoric of some Black politicians seems to indicate that there is much more in store for the Afrikaners in the immediate future, like the grabbing of White property, land and assets, a more radical BEE and a decrease in governmental protection of the lives of Whites in a politically criminalized South Africa.15,30-32

She pinpoints very clear the immediate steps that have to be taken on these culprits when she concludes6, p. 5: “Ek vra weer: Wie was dit wat Suid-Afrika regtig opgedonder het? ’n Wrede polisieman, of diegene wat die opdragte gegee het?”.

This urgent need to correct the failures of the TRC and to act against the free-walking apartheid culprits, is also reflected by Pearl Boshomane when she says5, p.18: “Good for Adriaan Vlok for publicity trying to cleanse himself of the shame of his actions – but you know what would be even better? If criminals were to rot in jail for their atrocities [that] would be a great start towards reconciliation. I’m sure many victims of apartheid would prefer that instead of tears and a hug.”

However, as said, criminal proceedings are not enough for many of the apartheid victims. Many of these victims want financial compensation from those who were directly involved in criminal actions, while others wish for compensation from the Afrikaner community and business sector as a whole as they have benefitted from favoured business deals, the many other interests and the jobs etc. that apartheid offered them. Prominent are certain Afrikaner and nationalist Afrikaner business leaders and magnates who benefitted greatly from the apartheid system. They were favoured for business deals, contracts and other benefits. The current battle regarding Radical Economical Transformation (RET), seen by many Blacks as the second leg (economical revolution) in continuation of the first leg of the 1994 dispensation (political revolution), are excellent indicators of the Black call for “pay-back” of White capital obtained from apartheid-incongruities.4-7,9,33,34

For the critical and observing outsider, the 1994 political dispensation only represents the incorporation of 20 000 elite NP-AB members and 20 000 elite Blacks from various exclusive Black political institutions and organizations like the ANC, the POQO, the MK, etc., into a new, unofficial political and business union. It had one central aim: to enrich the new Black members and to help its White members keep their riches. That state capture by the post-1994 ANC already started as far back as 1994 and is evidenced by the many new Black millionaires in the top structures of the ANC and the ANC family. In the meantime the political elite of nationalist Afrikaners continued their lifestyles while the majority Blacks and many innocent Whites outside the NP-AB alliance were left in the cold with growing poverty and an uncertain future. It is shocking how many Blacks have stayed very poor since 1994. While Zuma’s state capture and notion of RET is borne of vice, it helps to reinforce and strengthened feelings of injustice, hate and revenge for apartheid among a great contingent of the poor Blacks. Sly politicians make use of these sentiments to gain power. Ever since 1652, governance in South Africa has been afflicted by a devouring monster of action and reaction, and it seems as if this cycle will destroy future regimes, be they good or bad regimes.4,28,35,36

The political and human rights activist and academic, Mamphele Ramphele28, p. 20, in evaluation of the failure of the South African state model since 1652, describes this unfortunate outcome after 1994, manipulated and steered by the dominant nationalist Afrikaner elite and supported by the ANC elite excellently:

Their brief was to protect the foundations of the capital accumulation and obstruct any redistributive policy framework designed to address the extreme poverty and inequality affecting the majority of people.

Key business people worked patiently to shift the mindsets of the then less-experienced ANC leaders to get them to adopt market-friendly liberal economic policy frameworks.

Non-Afrikaner business organizations and corporations also played key roles in ensuring the protection of an economic system dominated by White-led corporations.

The Reconstruction and Development Programme – favoured by trade unions and progressive social society groups to redress socioeconomic inequities – was marginalized.

The demise of the RDP in early years of the ANC government ensured that White economic power, capital and privileges were left intact.

The elite compromise underpinning our 1994 political settlement pressured the ANC, in the interest of political power, to sacrifice redistribution and concomitant socioeconomic upliftment of the majority of citizens, while the NP exchanged political power for continuing White economic power.

The cruel irony remains that the very people who rose from modest economic status only a generation or two earlier to become business moguls would devote so much energy to undermining policies to eradicate poverty – policies similar to those that ensured the spectacular success of the Afrikaners.

We are paying a heavy price for our failure to build the inclusive prosperous democracy the political settlement enshrined in our constitution.

3.2. The two sides of revenge and compensation▼

When a process of reconciliation of two enemies starts, the wrongdoings on both sides have to be acknowledged. The roles that feelings of injustice, prejudice, hate, revenge and counter-revenge play in an unjust system like apartheid should also be considered. These conflicting elements must fully be addressed, understood and completely solved before reconciliation can occur. The two enemies have to understand the drivers (stimuli, reasons and motives) for injustices and possible revenge as an outcome. Both participants in the process of reconciliation should understand the following: a) the Herodotus Rules of good governance and the consequences if these rules are transgressed by the ruler and his regime; b) that there are two opposing parties to the conflict and that both parties are guilty to injustices done to each other, that hate for each other and revenge and counter-revenge are normal outcomes of these injustices if not successfully reconciled.4,6,7, 28, 37

Two failures from the TRC in terms of above guideline became clear from day one:

There was only a single culprit (Afrikaners/Whites) versus a single victim (Blacks, ignoring tribal interests and orientation), with only the culprit obliged to ask and to obtain forgiveness. There should have been double entities: culprit (Afrikaners)/victim (Afrikaners) versus culprit (Blacks)/victim (Blacks), to address the wrongdoings and injustices that occurred in both directions.

The Herodotus Rules (six), to govern successfully and to be respected permanently and its implications for the creation as well as the solving of injustices, hate, revenge and counter-revenge between the two harmed parties, was not offered as a guideline for the steering of the reconciliation of the two broad parties around apartheid. This is an absolute pre-requisite for long term success with reconciliation.

The six Herodotus Rules37 show that any ruler should practice and respect the following rules to stay in power, to lead a long, happy life as a ruler and to prevent subsequent reprisals and retaliation directed at him and his descendants and followers by aggrieved subordinates or previously conquered groups and their descendants:

Always act with fairness and wisdom towards subjects;

Empower each individual politically, legally, socially, economically;

Do not favour or put certain individuals or himself forward;

Act with self-control at all times;

Do not be self-enriching at the expense of the subjects and

Do not abuse power or emotionally or physically exploit, abuse or misuse subjects.

Practicing these six rules in short means: 1) history repeats itself and 2) that the contravention of these rules creates hatred that spells tragedy for culprits; even after many centuries had passed.37

It must be noted that the Herodotus Rules includes the fact that the innocent may be punished for the sins of the guilty (much in line with the Mafia of Sicily’s attitude in blood revenge on families generations after the initial injustice, guilty or not).37

▲Cross-references: see Part 3, subdivision 3.1.1 and Part 4, subdivision 4.4.2.

3.3. Stretched justice and wrongdoing

A further negative outcome of the failed TRC attempt to bring a long-lasting post-1994 reconciliation between Afrikaners and Blacks, seldom acknowledged or even understood by many facilitators and the general public, is the effect of “stretched justice” on the conception of right and wrong (especially the lower social classes who believe that they suffered immensely under the apartheid regime). This idea has influenced the increase in crime in South Africa after 1994. The line of argumentation is that those hit worst by apartheid are required to turn the other cheek and carry on while the Whites guilty of apartheid crimes are going free. This perception has warped the public idea of what is good and just, and with good reason. If the Whites of the apartheid regime and some Blacks in high positions in the current regime can commit all forms of crimes without prosecution, what stops victims of apartheid from perpetrating the same kinds of crimes (seeing that it is accepted, sanctioned and lived by the top brass as “good and correct”). The exemption of the elite from any consequences for earlier anti-social behaviour strips the individual Black from the lower rank from any statutory empowerment to fight for what he sees as his legitimate rights and the opportunity to truly benefit from the post-1994 dispensation as promised by Nelson Mandela in his election promises. It seems as if “stretched” criminal behaviour has become a lifestyle for many poor, untrained and jobless Blacks over the years, strengthened daily by the current opportunistic Zuma politics.4,5,12,28,38-41

The foundations for the failure of the TRC (and the ANC regime later on) were laid in 1994, as Luthili7 and Ramphele28 both indicate. Ramphele writes28, p. 20:

The anger, despair and loss of trust between citizens who have been denied the socioeconomic fruits of freedom is exploding all around us. Violence at interpersonal, domestic and public levels scream out the sense of betrayal they experience.

Corruption and a complete disregard for the ethics and accountability set out in our public service legal framework are signs of alienation between leaders, public servants and the citizens they are meant to serve. The public service, with notable exemptions, has become a tool for looting from the highest office to the lowest worker.

State-owned enterprises are being hollowed out with impunity. Self-enrichment and patronage systems to secure perpetuation of the “ruling party” in government characterize much of our country today.

Boshomane5, p. 18 also emphasises the immense powerlessness the poor and lower class Blacks endure as a result of the 1994 dispensation, the TRC and the ANC’s new class system for Blacks after 1994, together with a growing deep-seated bitterness5, p. 18: “Only in South Africa are people expected to break bread with their torturers, murderers and oppressors, all in the name of unity, a legacy of the TRC and Mandela’s government.”

The “knives drawn” in 1994 by Blacks to use on Whites “are still out, waiting to cut,” although it seems as if many of the wronged Blacks of yesterday do not know who to cut now-a-days: the ordinary Afrikaners, –financially often in the same bad position as the wronged Blacks; the White moguls still enriching themselves daily; or their own ANC leaders who betrayed and double-crossed them from day-one. It is in this context that revenge for apartheid wrongdoings, RET and state capture is prospering and are cleverly steered by dubious, racially prejudiced politicians for their own masked agendas, mostly with negative consequences for the ordinary Afrikaner and the ordinary Black.

3.4 Salvaging efforts by the National Prosecution Authority (NPA)

Perhaps on second thought it is wrong to lay all the blame on the TRC for failing to solve the wishes, needs and demands of many Blacks regarding the apartheid-injustices done to them. It is wrong to think of the TRC as failed. Although the TRC was mandated to start criminal processes against apartheid offenders, its main aim was to bring reconciliation between Afrikaners and Blacks on apartheid crimes, a task that they mastered to a certain extent. Criminal prosecutions and civil actions against the culprits of apartheid were the primary tasks of the NPA and of course the ANC regime themselves. These two bodies failed the victims of apartheid, not the TRC.5

The NPA has at last started (but very slowly) to think in the direction of the prosecution of the apartheid wrongdoers in 2016 to comply with the wishes of many aggrieved Blacks for justice.5

The nationalist Afrikaner elite have already raised an outcry about these intended prosecutions. They view themselves as post-1994 victims of the Blacks. These protest reactions were limited seem to come from the guilty ones.5.

It is important to note that the White youth born after 1994 have outgrown the subjective attitudes on apartheid so entrenched in their parents. Most of these post-1994 Afrikaners feel that they are being unjustly punished for their parents’ and other Afrikaners’ wrongdoings in the past. For them the prosecution of the Afrikaner culprits of apartheid is an opportunity to get rid of their unasked and unwelcome nationalist Afrikaner racist baggage. On the other had they do not remember the nationalist Afrikaner leaders and their weird ideas as positive influences. This would include living ex-politicians like FW de Klerk, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Roelf Meyer and Pik Botha and deceased leaders like DF Malan, JG Strydom, HF Verwoerd, PW Botha, Jimmy Kruger and Magnus Malan, as well as the NP and the AB as the two leading Afrikaner institutions. As such, prosecution is null and void for them, because they do not identify with these figures. 4-7, 28

A large contingent of Afrikaners who were side-lined and themselves harmed by the NP-AB alliance’s extreme Afrikaner nationalism and who did not really have part in the apartheid atrocities would also like to see these nationalist Afrikaners with their political criminality be brought to book. This will at last give them the opportunity to heal their feelings of injustices done to them by NP-AB alliance and to free them from their own longing for revenge. The breakdown of the last remnants of the nationalist Afrikaner elite and their structures will help to set them free as Afrikaanses and as independent “nationalist” South Africans in new South Africa.

The NPA’s intent to prosecute individuals for apartheid crimes are too late and will surely involve only a few prosecutions. Most of the NP and AB culprits are deceased or have left the country. The damage done to the relationships between the ordinary Afrikaners and the Blacks by the nationalist Afrikaners’ discrimination is too great and the duration too long to remedy it quickly and completely with the punishment of the NP-AB elite. Any present reprisals and prosecutions for apartheid crimes also carry the risk of new racial conflicts and even mass bloodshed; this time not by the Afrikaners against Blacks, but by aggrieved Blacks whose grudges against the Afrikaners have not been resolved. Many of these wronged Black persons, still living in a very unstable emotional, economical and political South Africa, may see such a prosecution as official approval to attack the Afrikaners. Violence is a primary possible outcome because of a lack of security services to stump any revenge.

3.5. The TRC’s failure to solve injustices and to prevent revenge

It is true that the South African justice system – and the TRC to a certain extent – failed the Blacks in terms of addressing their feelings of being marred by injustices. If the system was not politically influenced and manipulated from 1994 onwards, many of the leaders of the old NP-AB government, some still living safely behind high walls, still doing business or active in post-1994 politics, would surely be in jail.5,7,21

There were various reasons for the failure of the TRC to attend immediately and fully to all the injustices done to Blacks by the Afrikaners at the reconciliation meetings. If they could do so successfully, it would have settled grudges about injustices and feelings of revenge. This failure was not so much an inability of the TRC. The process was manipulated by the ANC regime themselves as part of their plans to rule new South Africa.28,29

It is important to remember that the nationalist Afrikaners under NP-AB leadership were still well armed in 1994. Any provocative action, like a large-scale prosecution of the political and security leaders of the nationalist Afrikaners that could be seen as a threat to the Afrikaner’s immediate safety and rights, would have triggered a military intervention that could have thwarted the transfer of power to the Blacks. The late Nelson Mandela and his counsellors knew this well and took the wise route of not prosecuting.42-45

Secondly, Mandela knew very well as a freedom-fighter who had turned a peacemaker and as a wise man, the dire consequences of the Herodotus Rules that “crime and punishment, injustice and revenge” only create new crimes and thus new and counter-revenge.37 Also, the no process of prosecution and sentencing for any crime is subjective and completely just.37,46-49 In the case of war, racial and political crimes, these prosecutions and sentences are mostly emotionally driven and many times far from true justice (in most cases is it the winner, how criminal and corrupt they may be, who takes all, while the loser, sometimes of a far higher moral integrity than the winner and who are often the real victims, who loses all). The outcomes of comprehensive criminal prosecutions and sentencing of apartheid leaders by possibly biased ANC judges and their sympathizers could only spell mass conflict and immediate new problems for the young and insecure ANC regime in 1994 and immediately thereafter. A “Nuremberg” trail for apartheid offenders would only have triggered unnecessary and unasked counter-punishment and counter-revenge on Blacks by many Afrikaners innocently punished in terms of the Herodotus Rules’ punishments and reactions.38,41

3.6 Apartheid’s wrongdoings against the Blacks in South Africa are not unique

An important fact that many Black propagandists and victims of apartheid forget in their agitation for revenge, punishment, reimbursements and reparations for wrongdoings by Afrikaners or by Blacks who they see as collaborators with the Afrikaners during apartheid, is that this kind of deviating behaviour had already occurred uncountable times worldwide. It even occurred at least two other times in South Africa in the past. It went mostly unpunished, especially for the winner (who is mostly also the culprit). This historical and political naivety is not only reflected by the ordinary disadvantaged and impoverished Blacks at grassroots level, but also by prominent Black political leaders and community leaders. There is a constant stream of speeches and publications on the correction of the apartheid-wrongs and the future correction of the NP-AB alliance directed Constitution of 1996, which is seen as blocking RET as part of adjusting of the damages of apartheid.5,7,18,28,50-51

What is of immediate importance is that efforts to punish or reimburse or repair have seldom been successful.5,7,18,50

The next section examines cases where there have been human, financial and political wrongdoings that did not result in revenge.

3.6.1 Worldwide political wrongdoings that did not result revenge, punishment, reimbursement and reparations

When accusing the Afrikaner of apartheid atrocities and claiming their right to revenge, it is clear that the Black proponents of revenge have no sense of world history. There have been extreme wrongdoings that have gone unpunished, for instance the Persian empire, the Macedonian empire, the Islamic empire, the Mongol empire, the Chinese empire, and the Aztec and the Inca empires in the Americas.53

Their ignorance is also reflected by their lack or understanding of the history of the British Empire, as well as the land captures by the French, Americans, Dutch, Belgians and Spaniards, etc., and the accompanying human and civil wrongdoings by these foreigners without any revenge or compensation in return. Then of course there are the present-day murderous actions of the USA, France, UK, The Netherlands and other European countries in the independent states of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. In all these cases immense damages were (and are still) done to property, while millions of indigenous people were and are uprooted and thousands of innocents are killed. International law is ignored and the aggression-oriented Western powers see the loss of innocent human lives as unavoidable and excusable. Revenge and compensation for these extreme war crimes and crimes against humanity are absent notwithstanding the degree of injustice that has been done.53-55

The killing of thousands of innocent German civilians by the executive order of Sir Winston Churchill with his indiscrete air bombings of German citizens during the Second World War, the Americans killing of innocent Japanese citizens with two atomic bombs during WW2 and the indiscrete killing by USA air bombing of Vietnamese citizens in the 1960s, went unpunished or without reimbursement up to today. Recently we have seen the killing of more than 5 800 innocent civilians in a four-month’s period during the bombing of ISIS in Mosul, Afghanistan, by USA-led forces. It was justified as “natural outcomes of war” and not as war crimes. Then there is of course the Western-backed Israel’s constant terrorizing of and comprehensive discrimination against and indiscrete killings of the Palestinians, actions that also fail to attract any form of compensation or reimbursement to the Palestinian victims.18,53,56,57

The legal and customary right to revenge, reimbursement and reparation for political misconduct by specific races and ethnic groups towards others is mostly non-existent, especially when the culprit is the winner-conqueror-ruler. There are no consequences for the leaders of the world powers (especially in the West) who executed these crimes, like Winston Churchill, Gerald Busch, David Cameron, Tony Blair, Bill and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama and Donald Trump. They were not brought to the book for war crimes and crimes against humanity, notwithstanding the fact that these behaviours are seen as murder in terms of international law.50,53,55-57[British politician Lloyd George offers a description of Churchill that aptly describes this cold-bloodedness in the characters of world leaders whose inhuman behaviour to other human beings went unpunished58, p. 13: “He would make a drum of out of the skin of his own mother in order to sound his praises.” The same can be said of many prominent leaders and governments of many other leading countries that have made themselves guilty of crimes against humanity that went unpunished].

3.6.2 The 1899–1902 wrongdoings against the Northern Afrikaners▼

Mass murder and abuse also happened to the Afrikaners during the Second Anglo Boer War (SABW) of 1899 to 1902 as reflected by the deaths of 29 045 Transvaal and Free State citizens in concentration camps at the hand of the British. Today this would be regarded as nothing less than crimes against humanity, even planned genocide. Of these 29 045 deaths, 4 177 were women and 22 074 children; all killed over a period of three years. Besides this loss of loved ones, many lost their farms, homes, their savings, etc. It took the proto-Afrikaners from the early Boer republics years to overcome their psychological and financial breakdown after the Anglo Boer War.2,3,43,59,

What is of utmost importance is that the Boers never took direct revenge on the many British instigators of these deaths, like Lord Alfred Milner and his partners, Cecile John Rhodes, Dr LS Jameson, Lord Kitchener or even King Eduard VII after the war. Such bloodrevenge would be a priority and an absolute need in certain societies. Never was there a single assassination attempt on the prominent British in South Africa, like Milner, after 1902 for their war crimes and crimes against humanity, or on the British immigrants (ex-soldiers) who were established and benefitted from Milner’s policies. 2,43

This reflects well on the integrity of the Afrikaners. Even in a time of utmost injustice, they behaved humanely and forgave their enemies. Mostly they just continued with their lives without looking back over their shoulders to plan revenge, compensation and reimbursement for injustices done to them during the SABW. Yes, they hated the British and this remained with most nationalist Afrikaners for their entire lives, but they never took revenge in any form.2,3,43,59

▲Cross-references: see Part 2, subdivision3.1.3 and Part 3, subdivision 3.3.

3.6.3 Black-on-Black injustices in South Africa

Regarding the allegations and belief that only the Afrikaners have made themselves guilty of acts related to colonialism, slavery, imperialism, racism and ethnocentrism in South Africa, our history shows that these wrongs are not unique to the Afrikaners. The South African history of the Black population shows clearly that it is also immensely clouded by genocide, colonialism, slavery, imperialism, racism and ethnocentrism. Leaders like Shaka Zulu, the founder of the Zulu people, and Mzilikazi, the founder of the Matabele (Ndebele) people, practiced at the same time empire building, colonialism, ethnocentrism, racism, slavery and genocide in cold blood and without mercy on other Blacks. The Black history of South Africa confirms the murder of more than one million Blacks and the eradication of at least 28 tribes between 1810 and 1840 in South Africa.4,18,60,61

Negative Black behaviour, very much in the class of apartheid, was reflected more recently again in the form of xenophobia by South African Blacks against foreign Blacks with very little reaction by the authorities to safeguard the foreigners. Compensation was not even on the periphery. Also the massacre at Marikana, Rustenburg by the ANC regime’s security forces of Black people confirms the presence of cruelty and wrongdoing between Blacks. There has been very little revenge in the form of criminal actions against the government or financial compensation.62,63-65

The Zulus never compensated the other tribes they terrorized for stealing their women, children or livestock, or for the burning of their Kraals and taking their land, etc., during the unstable period of 1810 to 1840. The same failure is reflected by Mzilikatzi and his murdering tribesmen or their descendants. Nor was the Khoi-San, the earliest settlers and by international law the true owners of early South Africa, compensated by the present-day Blacks for their forefathers’ discrimination and murderous behaviour towards them when occupying and colonizing their land.44

There was never a post-1994 TRC to call the leadership of the ANC and the other Black terror organizations to book for the atrocities and tortures committed against dissident members, for instance Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) in ANC camps like Quatro outside South Africa during apartheid. (Yes, there was the so called Motsuenyane-Commission, but at the end it had no public standing in bringing justice or trustworthiness by its farce of identifying only six culprits for minor offences for these immense atrocities).4,65The true fact is that many of the Blacks responsible for these criminal deeds against other Blacks at places like Quatro became the top brass of the 1994 ANC regime. Is this condoning of present-day “in-house” political murder between Blacks fair against the Afrikaners: is it not exactly the same behaviour, if not more extreme, than what is associated with apartheid? Or is it just possible one of many examples of selective amnesia about their own discriminative and mal-behaviour or that of their beloved and adored ANC-leaders by some of today’s Black activists and politicians who are constantly and shamelessly calling for revenge on White-Apartheid?4,5,7,65

Zuma’s state capture shows how selectively and successfully the race card has been played after 1994. It shows the double standard of racial and ethnic revenge and how this is selectively applied in South Africa. This state capture relies on a strong Zulu support base and political cadres (very much in line with the apartheid’s corrupted NP-AB-DRC alliance). This situation selectively enriches certain Black and Foreign Asian persons and groups, as well as family members. The basis here is an immense political and financial discrimination against millions of other poor Blacks (nothing less than a system that can be called “Black-on-Black apartheid” and very much in line with the NP-AB government and its grand apartheid), making Black poverty and Black political disempowerment as strong and large in number than apartheid in the South African history. This current exploitation and discrimination continues, notwithstanding its similarities with the Afrikaners and their apartheid, and it goes free of the strong contingent of criticism that the present-day Blacks so noisily agitate against Afrikaners and apartheid.5,6,28,66

The race card is cleverly played here. First, most of the activists and critics of Afrikaner-apartheid are part of the present Black regime that is already executing various forms of racial discrimination and punishment against Whites (self-criticism is unacceptable!). Secondly, their hostility against Afrikaners is founded on and driven by the knowledge that the Afrikaners, as the last White race in Africa, lack any support from the outside world or a motherland. They are vulnerable and an easy target for uncontrolled Black attacks, demands and enforcement of compensation without any backlash (political winners sometimes change to bullies very quickly).7,9,12,28,31,32,67

What is clear here is that the arguments of some Blacks regarding revenge, reimbursement and compensation for political wrongdoings by the Afrikaners, are not emotionally balanced, lack sound reasoning and are subjective and one-sidedly applied. Often this is unjust to the Afrikaners and offered by opportunistic and short-sighted Blacks. There is a great preoccupation with opportunistic and subjective ideas of self-enrichment through the unlawful transfer of others’ belongings under the auspices of “justified reimbursement.” It seems as if these people lack the insight to see what impact this unconstructive and self-destroying thinking of “justified revenge” can have on their own future in the country.7,9,12,28,31,31,67

3.7 The impossibility of reparation

Research shows that even if there are some grounds for justified revenge, the implementation of a system to calculate and to collect reimbursement and reparation is a very complicated exercise and basically an impossible task to complete successfully (Nelson Mandela and the ANC regime realized this and avoided the path of criminal prosecution). Although war reparation costs were calculated and collected in some cases in the past, like the fines and land losses that were imposed on Germany after WW1 and WW2, these kinds of war punishments only inspired new feelings of retribution. Compensation in itself often leads to the activation of hate, conflict and Herodotus’s revenge, as Hitler’s revenge for the WW1-punishment of Germany shows.18,37

There are four clear reasons why it is basically impossible to calculate accurate values for the collection of repayment for reparation18,53,60,68:

Social justice based on figuring out whose ancestors did what to whom, is just a case of impossibility;

Formulating an acceptable and justified rule of law to calculate and to collect the compensations is impossible;

All these different races and ethnicities involved in crimes against humanity have become so intermixed and socially intertwined with time that it is impossible to select and to separate the victim from the culprit. In South Africa, as in the Americas and Europe, people of different races have to a certain extent mixed.18 The well-known socialite and cultural leader Dali Tambo, himself married to a White and experienced in the area of racial conflict solutions, defined this racial intertwining aptly when he said68, p.13: “In my family there are three colours: black, white and my four golden brown children.”

In terms of these calls for compensation (which is closely related to sub-point c above), the question emerges about the legal position and rights of aliens, foreigners and colonists (labels that are often applicable to the Afrikaners in post-1994 South Africa) who have been staying in their adopted countries for centuries and who have in some way intermixed with the indigenous people. What must happen to these “strangers” after they have done their time or paid their reparation for their wrongdoings to the “indigenous” people? Must the Afro-American be deported back to Africa or the English Scotsman goes back to England or must Julius Malema goes back to Venda as a further punishment? Must they remain “strangers” and be discriminated against for the rest of their lives? If such a division can be made purely on facial characteristics, ignoring what is going on beneath the skin of the Afrikaner, whereto can these “foreign” Afrikaners being exiled to after 350 years of living in South Africa? These questions make the Afrikaners unsure about their future in the new South Africa, especially in light of the growing political rhetoric.18,53,60

In line with the above racial outcome there is a prominent and worrying question: Has the Afrikaner become the “Afrikaner question” or “Afrikaner problem,” like the Jewish one in the 1930s in Europe and Nazi Germany: a problem to be solved by genocide? This question is more than justified in terms of the escalating murders of White farmers since 1994 and the outright failure of the ANC regime to combat it.2,53

The people who call for revenge, often guided by communist ideas, forget the stern warning of their master, Karl Marx: History repeats itself. This, together with the warning of Herodotus: Evil done is revenged with more evil, reflects a recipe for disaster. Both Black and White are caught in a vicious circle of repeating the actions of the forefathers. What is unclear at this stage is who is going to do what to whom in 50 years. Remember, history repeats itself with the same evil over and over, so the chances are good that the what will be negative.4,37,43,69

Dali offers a wise guideline for behaviour to the many Blacks so constantly calling for revenge on and reparation by the Afrikaners in South Africa68, p. 13: “Rather than angry, I feel sad. Sad for the racist who goes through life in self-imposed isolation from the wondrous variety of human culture and colour, who lives in self-imposed ignorance of other people’s rich cultural traditions and the beauty of their diverse and distinct forms of human expression. Over time racism has been the source of so many woes, of so much hell on earth and deep dishonour.”

Discussion

4.1 The ANC’s modern penalties for apartheid

4.1.1 End of criminal penalties

It is clear that it would be impossible to embark on criminal prosecution of Afrikaners for their apartheid wrongdoings today. Only a few of the extremists are still alive. The more than twenty years since 1994 also a great burden on the memories of the few living direct victims of apartheid crimes, making the trustworthiness of their evidence questionable in an open court.4,28,31

The ANC politicians sensed this dilemma in 1994 and they embarked on various other revenge actions, like AA and BEEE. The redistribution of capital through the promotion of Black employment seems have been insufficient, especially in light of the total failure of the financial policies of development of the ANC regime to reform and better South Africa for its Black people. The lack of capital for development in the absence of a sound economy is forcing the Black regime to look for new ways to gain capital from Whites as “apartheid injustice compensations”. This trend serves as a concrete example of revenge for apartheid. Financial gain seems to be the most satisfactory compensation for those who want retribution. This process has already been activated in the form of RET and the state capture that started in 1994 by the ANC regime under Mandela. It is now reaching its climax under Zuma.28,66,70-73

Various kinds of inequalities between Whites and Blacks, like salaries, household incomes, education, land, house and property ownership, company ownership, individual and family wealth, etc., have been put forward as reasons for “apartheid injustice compensation.” Another more “dark and diabolic” intention, –although hidden, seems to be to drive Afrikaners out of South Africa through the various implementations of Black apartheid in the form of work discrimination, political hostility, isolation and disempowerment, planned financial impoverishment and especially farm murders of Whites. The ANC-elite’s strong emphasis since September 2017 on readdressing and rectifying further the pre-1994 apartheid-situation under their focus of Radical Social Transformation (RST), is a red light of warning. Specific the arrogance of the public remark by the ANC-spokesperson Zizi Kodwa on the person of the well-known and respected international businessman, Johann Rupert, as an “ungrateful parasite” after Rupert’s justified remark that the intention of the ANC to seizure so called “gains” of Afrikaners and Whites, “allegedly unlawfully obtained during apartheid”, as nothing less than “thieving”, spells evil for all classes of Afrikaners in future in South Africa.66,69,72,73

4.2 New age of revenge

The various forms of Black revenge against Afrikaners for their pre-1994 racial discrimination and apartheid crimes against the Black population are present and they hold serious consequences for the Afrikaners in the new South Africa. Its negative and devastating impact goes unnoticed to the outside world, and where noticed, it attracts very little attention or sympathy. This negative scenario is shortly evaluated.

One of the arguments of the ANC regime and Black activists and politicians regarding the differences between the financial income of Whites and Blacks, is that it is a direct result of apartheid’s discriminations and benefits, which they alleged had outright and favoured White appointments, salaries, properties and financial support to Afrikaner individuals and Afrikaner business groups. This must now be rectified. Specific examples are the profiles of persons like Johan Rupert, Christo Wiese, Douw Steyn, the Oppenheimer family. However, the wealth of Blacks, like Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa, the Zuma clan or the Gupta family never appear anywhere in ANC propaganda or writings of Black activists. There is the same hostility against ABSA Bank, Afrikaner media groups like Media24 and Nasionale Pers, and other Afrikaner organizations such as Sanlam, Rembrandt, etc. The ANC’s own enterprises with a strong RET orientation, are off the radar. What these Black “judges” of White wealth further fail to do, is to mention that most of these White business entities have already gone through the process of Black empowerment with strong contingents of Black shareholders and Blacks in top management. The capturing these institutions by way of nationalization spells disaster, as has already happened with various parastatals such as SABC, SAA, Telkom, as well as the public school system and healthcare. Some prominent South African universities went down the drain under the guardianship of the ANC since 1994.66,69,72,81-83

It is surprising to see how little the present government’s political and financial policy makers know about basic economical rules to follow and not to follow to make a country financially viable and sustainable (although this serious financial shortcoming is contradicted by the Gupta’s financial progress inside the governmental powerhouse). Intentions to nationalize Afrikaner interests is one example of bad financial governance.12,84-87,89,90

4.2.1 Income

First it is important to note how one-sidedly politicians like Jacob Zuma, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Julius Malema formulate their reflections on the state of poverty of Blacks with apartheid as a direct role player. Jacob Zuma and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma reflect that the Blacks only possess only 20% of the South African economy, compared to the 80% that Whites own. They ask why this is still the case with Blacks having 100% of the political power. Secondly, the primary reason for this discrepancy in terms of their viewpoints and opinions is that it is an apartheid outcome, one that needs immediate correction, especially through RET. At the same time various political pro-ANC commentators who support RET emphasise the absolute need for land ownership by poor Blacks.12,28,52,81,84-87,89,91

To further support the arguments for the need for RET and the redistribution of White Capital, official data are skilfully and constant offered in the press to remind readers of the urgency to get compensation for apartheid. The dire situation of unemployment among Blacks is one example. Of all South Africans older than 15 years, less than 40% are employed in some form. Off the 55 million total population, of which 35 million can accept employment, only 15 million are in employment, leaving 20 million unemployed. More specifically this means that for every ten persons who have work, 25 persons are unemployed. The negative impact is much higher when one remembers that the total population of 55 million needs some basic income to be able to live, and only 15 million work. This global comparison indicates a ratio of employment versus unemployment of 2:7). Regarding the racial attitude, the ratio for Whites is ten in work against 13 unemployed. The ratio for Blacks employed versus unemployed is 10:28. The official unemployment number for Whites is 7% versus 30% for the Blacks. Their has been an insignificant increase of only 127 000 persons into employment from 2010 to 2015 in the age group 7 to 17 years, totalling a 11.2 million persons in work placement for this age group. In 2015 2.4 million children, not really qualified and mature enough to work, were being forced to work as a result of their family’s poverty. This dooming data is further strengthened by official household studies that reflect the average annual income of Whites as R444 446.00 versus that of the Indians as R271 621.00, Coloureds as R172 983.00 and the Blacks as R92 983.00. The ratio of this annual income for Whites versus all South Africans is 2:6, while for Whites versus Blacks it is 2:9. The above data clearly favours Whites.12,81,92,93 Khumalo finds the above data so overwhelmingly pessimistic that he writes93, p.10: “…poor blacks barely surviving, while rich whites are prospering….”

However, when Black emotions and self-pity are discarded, another picture emerges. The ANC regime has failed gloriously to uplift its people.12,81,92,93

The first question is: Who were the rulers of the new South Africa over the last 23 years? The answer is simple: The ANC regime and their top brass of unable, unskilled and crooked men who promised to deliver on the mandate to serve their fellow men. The ANC regime failed from day one with Nelson Mandela’s under-performance as a statesman to uplift or better the living conditions and lifestyles of the Blacks. The negative standard of leadership was followed by Thabo Mbeki and his arms deal, the Schaiks and Yengeni’s; a failed cycle that was perfected by Jacob Zuma and his Zuptas.14,28,94

The open question in this context is: why did the ANC party and the leadership accept guardianship of South Africa in 1994 if they knew beforehand that they lacked the ability to govern successfully. Did they already their sights set on state capture and the enrichment of only certain Black political elites? The answer goes much deeper and is founded in the compromise between the NP-AB alliance and ANC (freely agreed to by the ANC in exchange for financial benefits for its elite as the new government after 1994) which transferred the political power in 1994 to the ANC while the economic and empowerment structures around it stayed in the ownership of the NP-AB. This outcome basically castrated the ANC regime of effective political power. This 1994 outcome was not a surprise for the ANC – they knew it beforehand and were willing parties. Ramphele writes28, p. 20: “The ANC anticipated this state of affairs in its 1992 “Ready to Govern” report: “We are prevented from developing a national vision in terms of which we would see our country through the eyes of all its citizens and not just one group or the other.” What they do not like to admit is that it was they have failed from 1994 to see the South African life ‘through the eyes of all its citizens’ due to their own scheming. The ANC (as the NP-AB did before with its blindness for Blacks) as the new leader has failed “to see all the citizens of the country”. It is struck with blindness as far as the Whites go. Misplaced emphases on apartheid, its wrongs and the Afrikaners as the sole role players has become the daily rhetoric on the South African history among political activists who promote retribution for apartheid because they can see only Black.11,14,28,29

The second basic question is: who has been keeping the ANC in power for 23 years since 1994, notwithstanding their growing failure as a government to do good to all Blacks? The answer: Black people as individual voters of South Africa themselves, the people who suffer extreme poverty. These ordinary Blacks have had various opportunities to vote the ANC out in favour of a variety of Black political parties, but they have stuck to their fate as if masochists, enjoying the suffering brought on by their ANC masters. It is foolish for these impoverished ordinary Blacks to cry foul about injustices committed before or after 1994. They only have themselves to blame for their current poverty and suffering. Political immaturity has led to a spirit of greed and naivety about the estrangement of Whites and the value of ANC intervention. The culture of dishonesty and laziness created by the ANC since 1994 among their Black followers, notwithstanding enormous financial support to develop and better themselves, play a strong role in their present poverty. It is no longer a remnant of apartheid.12,14,86,95,96

Since 1994 a financial input of R500 billion has failed to bring real positive change to the financial status of Blacks. Unemployment steadily escalated. The lack of training, poor school education and failure to create jobs are the roots of the failure of ANC. Yet the ANC would constantly call this a remnant of apartheid.14,16,92,97-99,

4.2.2 RET

The ANC sells citizens the idea that state of Black poverty is a remnant of apartheid, and this has resulted in the aggressive call for RET. Julius Malema and his EFF has become masters at calling for land transfer from Whites to Blacks without compensation in an effort to take back land from “colonists.” More recently Zuma himself, supported by his new finance minister Gigaba and his adviser professor Malikane, started to test South Africans’ reaction to total RET on White interests as a model (in the press referred to as the Malikanegate) to equalize the injustices of apartheid. Although the White media and political and business leaders have shown strong resistance, even threatening with legal actions, the approval for RET seems strong among a faction inside the ruling ANC as well as in the general Black public. For Zuma and his trusted cadres and foreign business partners RET is not so much a way to rectify the apartheid injustices, but also a very important vehicle to obtain future support from the masses of impoverished Black voters to sustain the “Zuma double government’s reign of comprehensive state capturing of South Africa” (and for Zuma to stay out of jail for as many as 783 corruption charges against him). The necessity of keeping Zuma in power makes RET an urgent tactic. The vagueness of the definition of “radical” is worrying: first because it seems to refer to a widespread nationalization of White ownership and shareholding in mines, industries, pension funds, private companies, banking and financial enterprises, private property and land, etc. Second, remarks by spokespersons inside the Zuma circle regarding possible physical action (a forcible and violent nationalization) against Whites who dare try to oppose White RET are very disconcerting. The seriousness of this focus is evident from references to this as the Second Revolution.32,67,100-102

On the other hand Afrikaners and other Whites must not overreact. This rhetoric is old news in South Africa: this kind of governance, also implemented by the NP-AB regime, can be traced back to 1710 at the Cape. Secondly, the Afrikaners knew in the early 1990s that this type of political and economical government, typical of the South African state, will surely also be the way the ANC planned to behave if it comes to power.28 Vilakazi writes45,p. 60:

Whether or not we, as individuals, like it, there will be tremendous pressure from the poor Black masses to use the state, ‘the concentrated power of society,’ to offset the control of the economy by Whites, and to uplift economically the poor masses, who will, then, see themselves as ‘bosses’ of the new society; there will be tremendous pressure to make the state a ‘welfare state’ for Blacks, too, instead of for Whites only, as is presently the case; and continuous, tremendous pressure to have the new state intervene directly in the ‘free play of the market’ – and this momentum will lead to pressure upon the state to make deep inroads into capitalist private property, thus crossing the boundaries of a bourgeois revolution, into the terrain of a socialist revolution”.

History has revealed that any social class, lacking capital of its own, involved in conflict with an economically powerful class, internal or external, tends to use state capital, once it has captured political power, to initiate economic growth; there is a tendency to make the state a direct entrepreneur in the economic sphere. The state becomes a means for the uplifting of the economically disadvantaged classes. Interestingly enough, the very history of the impact of enfranchised poor Whites, the White petty-bourgeoisie, and the White working class in South Africa itself confirms this assertion.

The current RET has always been a logical outcome awaiting the Afrikaner. The NP-AB alliance kept this reality from their supporters. Remarks in the Afrikaans media referring to the academic adviser appointed by the ANC regime to activate RET and capital capture as the “mal prof” (crazy prof) or his intentions as “Malikanegate,” is not only inappropriate and slanderous, but is clearly an effort to cover up the Afrikaners’ own history on economics and politics. They are themselves running the gauntlet of the Afrikanerism of the past.28,103-106

The ANC’s lack of ability to manage the South African economy, nationalization notwithstanding, spells doom for the Whites, but even more so for the large group of poor Blacks. The ANC’s botching of the SABC, SAA, Telkom, public education and healthcare, public universities, municipalities, as well as the transfer of established White farms to Blacks with only 10% to 20% of farms still functioning, are excellent examples of the ANC-elite’s inability and lack of skills to manage a country. The lack of integrity and honesty with regard to financial and political matters in the government, widespread corruption, nepotism and fraud, as well as the planned execution of state capture by the top brass of the ANC regime, spells ominous for RET and Whites in South Africa. The end will be a disaster the likes of Mozambique and Zimbabwe, leaving South Africa without a sound infrastructure. This will create an opportunity for incoming African despotic and corrupt regimes as Marx’s history repeats itself. The hard fact is that the ANC simply lacks the brilliant think tank of the NP-AB that planned, managed and steered the South African economics successfully for many decades. This distrust of the ANC regime among South Africans is reflected in a 2016 study on the citizens of African countries. While the percentages indicating trust were respectively 73% for Namibia, 71% for Tanzania and 50% for Mozambique, the count was only 40% for South Africa.32,107-111

Zuma and those in his circle lacks a sound understanding of the negative impact of nationalization of White assets. As such forcible redistribution will have disastrous effects. They are trying to kill the goose that lies the golden egg.108 The Fourie analysis108 shows that if the total wealth of the approximately 38 500 millionaires of South Africa (which includes a significant number of Blacks) is paid out in cash to each South African citizen, the amount received by each citizen will be a single payment of R38 282.00. If this amount is wisely invested for 10% interest, the monthly income would only be R319.00 per month. Not much of an income if the Black household’s average monthly income of R7 750.00 is insufficient to take them out of poverty. About the ANC’s dream to redistribute all, Fourie108 shows also that if the 36 000 commercial farms are each turned over to ten Black families it will only create work for 6% of the South African jobless. This subsistence farming model will not generate enough for a single family to live on, not even speaking of producing food for the country. These 36 000 commercial farms currently contributes 95% of South Africa’s food output.

The ANC’s leaders have been playing the race card from the beginning and they have become masters at hiding their own agendas. Their bullying behaviour in the form of all kinds of discriminative attitudes against the Afrikaners did not stop with at BEE, AAA, etc., but has slowly intensified in the last two years. Much of their hatred for the Afrikaners and their perceptions of injustices done to them by the Afrikaners through apartheid, were never been addressed by the TRC. It is now spilling over and developing into revenge in the form of various forms of compensations, masterminded to impoverish and control the Afrikaners further.

4.2.3 Farm murders and attacks

Physical revenge is promoted by the constant public White-bashing by prominent Blacks, especially by persons like Malema with remarks such as “We will not now kill the Whites.”17,112 The killing of Whites, especially Afrikaner farmers have become a common phenomenon in South Africa since 1994, with very little effort on the side of the ANC regime to prevent it or to offer compensation. The farm murders are of such little concern to the ANC that it was only after great effort that a discussion on the issue was allowed in the parliament.

Two outcomes of these farm attacks and murders are clear: Blacks are taking revenge on farmers for apartheid. Second, there is a direct effort to drive Afrikaner farmers from their farms as was done by the Mai-Mai in Kenia and Swapo in Namibia. If there is any doubt about the truth of this statement, the official data on the matter erases it. In 2016, 70 White farmers were murdered in 345 farm attacks. In practice this means one farm murder every four days and one farm attack every day. If the averages of 2016 for South Africa are compared with the 2016 data on world’s averages, South Africa seems to be a very dangerous country. The world average is 7:100 000 versus South Africa’s average of 33:100 000. This dangerous South African characteristic is also confirmed by the murder of members of the South African Police Service in 2017, namely 54:100 000. The murders of South African farmers in 2016 came to a shocking 133:100 000. The SAPS data for the period 1991 to 2016 reflect the death of 14 589 farm dwellers (with a ratio 60% Whites: 40% Blacks). It is clear that White farmers have slowly, as in Zimbabwe, been driven from the farms since 1994. These murders to drive Whites off their farms are very successful (and fulfils to the revenge for apartheid) as evidenced by the fact the in 1994 there were 65 000 commercial farmers against 35 000 in 2017.109,113

4.2.4 The insignificance of the race factor

The leaders of the ANC fail to see that the race factor in South Africa is slowly starting to diminish in the mindset of many ordinary Blacks. The alleged race factor, whereby Blacks and Whites are played off against each other and the Afrikaners are treated as “unwelcome colonists” is contradicted by research. Prominent points of conflict that some of the ANC politicians and activists so eagerly like to point out as reasons for reparation and revenge are not that prominent at all. Research shows that poverty and joblessness, which has increased dramatically since 1994, are far more concerning than the race factor, with 73% of poor being Blacks. Research by the Institute of Racial Relations in 2016 reflected that 40% of citizens are worried about unemployment, 34% about poor service delivery, 18% about poor home accommodation and 15% about education, compared to only 3% being worried about the race factor. This shows that 71% Blacks and 74% Whites have no concerns about race. This absence of the race factor as a concern among ordinary Blacks is further confirmed by the Caro Institute in the USA’s finding that the reasons why South Africa is the 5th most depressed and unhappiest country in the world are unemployment, inflation and high interest rates, not racial conflict or hate.32,114,115

Many Blacks feel quite positive about Whites. Many of the negative reflections on Whites must be read in terms of one-sided and manipulated propaganda by a small number of politicians and political activists with their own hidden agendas, as well as Black opportunists with the intention to enrich themselves by grabbing the riches of Whites through a well-orchestrated RET. More and more Blacks are looking past the emotional rhetoric of leaders like Jacob Zuma, Cyril Ramaphosa and Julius Malema that singles out and emotionally attacking Whites for own political gains, especially colonialism. It seems to be the rising middle and higher Black classes who are financially becoming more established, who are inclined to good relations with Whites.12,31,32,98,110,116

4.2.5 The Afrikaners’ own role in RET

All the above being said, no-one can argue that the Afrikaners and their forefathers did not also benefit from their own form of state capture and RET. These practices started in 1671 and was refined and masterminded by the nationalist Afrikaners from 1948. There was the same returns for powerful elites in public offices to reward loyal leaders and members, abuse of political power to promote prosperity and wealth for a few at the cost of the many. It was normal practice under the NP-AB alliance. The NP-AB alliance was experienced in RET and state capture and more than ready and willing to teach the leaders of the ANC all the ropes when they joined government in 1994. It is therefore no surprise that the ANC leaders became so good at state capture and RET so quickly.28,29,43,45

Ramphele writes28, p. 20:

The NP government refined state capture into statecraft. The Broederbond, its think tank and brains trust, was a powerful political machine to ensure the capture, command and control of South Africa for the benefit of the Afrikaner volk.

The successful eradication and the building of a strong middle and upper class secured the perpetuation of NP dominance until 1994. This economic success was bought at the expense of silent acquiescence to human rights abuses against the majority indigenous population.

But there are some differences: the ANC concentrated on the elite freedom fighters, with little financial bettering of the broader Black populace. They failed to uplift the Black masses through education and training, better lifestyles through higher incomes and affordable healthcare, failed to offer Blacks personal safety, etc. The nationalist Afrikaner leadership successfully extended these benefits to most nationalist Afrikaners at least (and to some extent also to some favoured Blacks). The nationalist Afrikaners did not allow the extreme corruption, fraud and nepotism, or free entrance of crooked foreigners to the state coffer. Leaders like JB Vorster (with the Muldergate Scandal) and PW Botha were swiftly and properly dealt with when they overstepped the line. Their departures took place without them ever being accused of one of the 783 charges of corruption that characterized Zuma.28,29,43,117

However much apartheid and Afrikanerism are detestable, not one of the leaders of the NP came close to ever having such charges against them as Zuma does at the moment.102,118-130

No one in South Africa is exempt from guilt. At most one can say that all the various rulers from 1652 to 2017 each ruled under specific world and local circumstances, traditions, beliefs and needs. Each regime was exposed to unique circumstances, demands and dangers, making them in some ways incomparable. Although this outcome does not make provision for exemption of wrongdoing, it does make certain behaviours understandable, though not forgivable. There is, however, very little understanding for Afrikaners and apartheid.

4.2.6 The ANC’s own colonial ghost of 2017

The ANC will keep the legacy of apartheid alive in the minds of the supporters as long as possible to ensure a common enemy. One approach is colonialism and the Afrikaners’ status as colonists, with an enormous negative impact on racial reconciliation and harmony. It encourages revenge and counter-revenge and makes the impact of the TRC nil and void. This kind of opportunistic political view, nothing less than hypocrisy to obtain votes and radical political status, is reflected by Cyril Ramaphosa, at present vice-president and a candidate for president when he says130, p. 2: “Imperialisme (het) in Afrika gefloreer, want kolonialiste ‘het ons sommige van die ergste leuens laat glo’. Deur brute krag, deur ons hulpbronne te plunder en deur ons verstand en liggaam gevange te hou, (is) Afrikane van hul menslikheid en waardigheid ontneem,” and Africans were “verbeeldinglose primitiewe barbare te vrede met ‘n bestaansoorlewing afgemaak.”

Ramaphosa knows very well that he would make political gains with this opinion. Secondly, what lies is he referring to? It seems to be one of those “roaring statements” without substantiation that characterizes the ANC leadership’s emotional rhetoric; rhetoric free from any accountability. Thirdly, is he deliberately ignoring (selective amnesia?) his own part as mine-owner in the killing of Blacks at Marikana? He describes it as a “colonist developed mine” and initially owned by “colonists,” who “plundered South Africa’s resources.” Fourth – and the most damaging to his own position as a sincere Black fighter against colonialists and apartheid – is his role as a mine-owner making use of Black labour to enrich himself and his golden silence about how and from whom he obtained his mine ownership. Is this not also true colonialism and exploitation? Why is he not distancing himself from “awful” colonialism by in the first place not to get involved with an enterprise that can be associated with colonial activities. Why did he not transfer his mine shares and mine income to the exploited Black mine workers to make up for their poverty and their suffering at the hand of the colonists? Why are there no criticism from Black activists against apartheid on Ramaphosa’s mine interests and his self-enrichment from an old colonial enterprise? There are different rules for Blacks and Whites. This reflects, as with the planned RET, a double standard. Ramaphosa’s political rhetoric on Whites and the talk of colonialism is hampering positive racial relations. This troubles Afrikaners in South Africa.

The anti-colonialist propagandists forget that they themselves are part of a colonial financial structure that dates back to long before apartheid. The ANC has failed to address the exploitations that claim are inherent to this system, especially for the unfortunate colonists’ victims, the “verbeeldinglose primitiewe barbare te vrede met ‘n bestaansoorlewing,” to whom Ramaphosa130, p. 2refers. In reality only the foreign mentors of the South African regimes between1948 to 1994 and from 1994 to the present day changed: for the NP the mentors were Western Europe and the USA and for the ANC the mentors are China and Russia. Today, as in 1795, the country is still being governed by a self-serving minority in the name of the masses with a parliament castrated from executive powers to do best for the masses. The failed ANC, the Gupta factor, cadre employment, state capture, extreme corruption and nepotism all reflect this “Black colonialism” and exploitation of other Blacks.102,118-131

South Africa’s outdated colonial state and its aged economical principles and visions must be replaced with a solid bond between capitalists, landowners and the masses of poverty-stricken people who possess political power through their votes. A constructive change seems unacceptable for the leadership of the ANC. They fear losing their political and financial power. Such a change would mean letting go of the apartheid wrongs. This change will benefit the lower socio-economical level by educating them on sound and balanced thinking on the wrongdoings of the past and the absolute need for co-existing with capitalists, Whites with know-how and the majority of Blacks to make the country work. Such a change will eliminate the degrading influences of substandard politicians and short-sighted activists who are currently ruling South Africa.102

The “stretched government” described above is not new for many Afrikaners. They grew up and lived in the refined RET and state capture of the NP-AB alliance. What is of immediate importance is how they as a racial minority can minimise the devastating attacks on them that reflect them falsely as settlers, colonialists and exploiters of Blacks and that call for revenge. It is not enough for them to know that internal ethnic differences will perhaps take to focus away from them. The reality is that revenge in various forms is awaiting them.

4.2.7 Afrikaners’ cutting of their umbilical cord with the volk▼

The year 1994 was indeed a watershed year for the Afrikaners of South Africa. Their intimate and only trusted mentors, the leaderships of the NP, AB and DRC, suddenly started to crash. This not only took away their support system within a closed and selective group, but they also suddenly and unexpectedly saw the true colours of the nationalist Afrikaner leadership they so deeply adored and trusted for many years. Suddenly they met a selfish, self-centred and opportunistic group who over many years under the guise of a sacred volk, fatherland, Afrikaans as an exclusive language, own Afrikaner institutions, etc., successfully moulded them from ordinary Afrikaners into a supremacist nationalist Afrikaners unit in which racial discrimination and own benefit at the cost of Blacks were central priorities. Afrikaner supremacy, exclusive group interests and unselfish services to the propagated “Afrikaner nation” glued nationalist Afrikaners together. They recruited members through various governmental and other related institutions’ compensations, managed and executed by the NP-AB alliance’s refined state capture and radical economic transformation. These financial benefits were spiralling down to devoted and loyal members in the middle to lower ranks. In exchange for these immense benefits and support, members had to let go of their individual self-assertion for absolute group belonging with the central pre-requirements: service and loyalty to the Volk inside the comprehensive nationalist Afrikaner group.28,43,44,59

Membership to the “volk” made each individual member responsible not only for his intimate group’s misbehaviour, but also for the misbehaviour of the greater group (volk), up to the NP-AB leadership. When the NP collapsed, the leaders found protection in their cooperation with the incoming Black regime, but the ordinary citizens were left out in the cold. They became the ones who have to pay for apartheid. This abandonment of the ordinary Afrikaners did not happen immediately in 1994 because the De Klerk regime initially tried to protect Afrikaner supremacy. Since 1998 the individual Afrikaner has found himself on his own, open to full punishment for apartheid and its misconducts. Efforts to reposition with ultra-right Afrikaner groups or more liberal political groups were unsatisfactory. The emigration of the younger Afrikaners followed (more than 1 million), while the rest started to rethink their future in South Africa.2,28,43,59

It is clear that the ordinary Afrikaners suddenly had to learn to live as an individual inside a new South Africa, cutting ties with the volk. It became a case of every person for himself. Group loyalty and dogma and the protection of the group interest all but disappeared. It has become clear to poor individual Afrikaners that they will not benefit in any way from the wealth of Afrikaner magnates like the Ruperts, Wieses, Steyns, etc. The ties between the wealthy Afrikaner and the ordinary Afrikaner have been cut.

These Afrikaner magnates saved themselves. (These magnates, as independent Afrikaners, are more than able to take care of themselves and to defend themselves very successfully against financial, personal and political attacks as the international public relation’s firm, Bell Pottinger, dearly has learned and is paying for after it took on Rupert and other Afrikaners indiscreetly. The present self- discrediting of the audit and advisory giant KPMG South Africa must also be seen in the same context. The same outcomes can follow for many ANC-elites in their indiscreet attacks on the so called “rich” Afrikaners).

In reference to the planned Zuma-RET and ANC regime’s intent to diminishing White assets in general, there is very little linkage with the ordinary and becoming poorer Afrikaners’ direct financial interests and RET, but this fact seems to escape the mindsets of many ANC’s.

The question has been asked why the ultra-rich are not targeted for RET (Black and White). Data show that 66 000 South Africans are part of the richest 1% in the world, with 40 400 of the world’s 13.6 million ultra-rich and between 38 500 and 45 000 billionaires in South Africa. The three richest South Africans possess more than 50% of the total South Africa riches. The average Afrikaner has become poorer since 1994, making them less of a target for the ANC through RET. It must be remembered that 22% of the total Afrikaner population are 60 years and older: to capture their capital through RET will only impoverish these older persons further and make them a direct financial burden for the state.108,132-134

The individual Afrikaner has settled into a new South African lifestyle that is completely different from that of his father. It is now time they stop feeling guilty. But to gain a clean conscience, he has to shed, if he has not already done so, his membership of the various nationalist Afrikaner groupings and the remnants of the NP-AB-DRC leadership drenched in apartheid. It is time for the Afrikaner to reposition himself as an individual, stripped from all the emotional and political rhetoric he is bombarded with daily from extreme racial Black politicians and leaders. It is time to refuse unconditionally the many blames for whatever went wrong in the country’s near and far past, especially around the Blacks and their lives. South African Blacks are themselves responsible for a great deal of their mess through their blind and unquestioning worshipping of the ANC for 23 years. The TRC could have facilitated complete forgiveness among Black and White and White and Black long ago. True reconciliation would have prevented the political opportunism.

The Black calls for revenge and reparation, although it comes from a minority, must be a warning for Afrikaners of how blindly they can be targeted if South Africa’s civil, governing and legal systems suddenly collapse:. These tragic outcomes were seen in Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia and is now again present in Syria, Iraqi and Libya where reparations are not enough for the political activists. They use history to justify serious violence and murder and genocide.18,53,135

The ANC is clearly hostile towards the Afrikaner, and individual ANC members will have to change their perceptions for this to change. In the last two years the DA have started to dissociate from Afrikaners. It is clear that the DA is shedding its liberal orientation to gain Black votes, which are much more available than the diminishing White votes. A more radical view of Black interests and land-grabbing, RET, RST and partnerships with Malema and others will follow, making Afrikaners reluctant to join the DA. The rest of the South African Black parties have the same Afrikaner-distancing, while the remaining Afrikaner parties are still sleeping under the snow of old apartheid racism and old NP-AB leadership opportunism. To find a safe political home is becoming difficult for the individual Afrikaner, while thoughts of revenge against them are not receding.9,11,17,32,117,136-140

In his new political environment the individual Afrikaner must accept that his manifold previous empowerments and privileges by the favouring of apartheid have been nullified in 1994. They can no longer try to force these privileges: We are now all base en knegte at the same time in the same body. This change is one of the most important for the individual Afrikaner to make if he wants to be accepted unconditionally as an individual by the Black society. This is the pre-requisite: to understand, accept and appropriate the indigenous realities of South Africa to neutralize the vicious cycle of revenge and counter-revenge.16,22,83,94,136,137

▲Cross-references: see Part 4, subdivision 3.2.

Conclusion

The prominent question at this stage is why some of the Blacks are so keen on revenge for apartheid wrongs. Is the immense emotional and vocal rhetoric aimed at the Afrikaners by some Blacks solely driven by the fact that the Afrikaner is White? In terms of the Oppression Theory all Whites grew rich and powerful by beating up everybody else and taking their stuff. They are all culprits and obliged to pay reparations and to suffer revenge, it doesn’t matter if he is guilty or not?18

Is the Afrikaner simply a victim of the multiculturalists who seek to fill Whites worldwide with an overpowering sense of guilt and blame for all that went wrong with non-Whites, and thus to let them accept responsibility for all the suffering of non-Whites and the poor?18

Is the Afrikaner simply the victim of South African Black-on-White racial hate, hidden under the hypocrisy of false reconciliation and Christianity?

Or is the Afrikaner too rigid to change from Afrikaner Nationalism and Afrikanerism to a true South African individual, geared to mix in with the greater South Africa?

The revenge and counter-revenge around apartheid are complicated and difficult to explain and understand, if at all possible. However, all four above questions can be answered with a yes.

There is great similarity between Afrikaner-Apartheid-wrongdoings and Nazi-wrongdoings (excluding the murdering intentions of the Nazis).149,150 The criminal war-behaviour of Germany during World War II can no-one doubt, but, writes George Friedman, a Jew, who himself with his family, had immense suffered under the Nazis, on this sensitive issue149, pp. 105-106: “The Germans were forgiven under the concept of no collective guilt, the principle that Germany as a whole could not be held responsible for the crimes of the Nazis, but that only individuals who had committed the crimes could be. Nevertheless they remained stunned and ashamed by what they had done”. Many Afrikaners, especially the post-1994 borne one’s, are undoubtedly also ashamed by the political, psychological and socio-economical mal-behaviours and crimes of their NP-AB-leaders as well as their church-foremen during apartheid, but they can not be held responsible (as today’s Zulus can’t be held responsible for King Shaka Zulu’s atrocities against the other Black-tribes two centuries ago). This responsibility-endorsing of the total Afrikaner-tribe is been done more and more faultily by many ANC-elites and politicians. Afrikaner-leaders as individuals are alone guilty. (There are still a lot of these Afrikaner culprits living and political active in South Africa. Some of them with a conscious, like ex-minister Adriaan Vlok, tried sincere to make peace with their “bad” past; other, still catch-up in their psychopathology and self-justification, show no remorse and seem like cranky Hitler – beset on his ideology of racial supremacy and the Jews as “bad’ – to think still that their Apartheid-behaviours and views on Blacks as “problems” were totally correct).149,150 The Mandela-regime as well as the TRC had the opportunities from 1994 to call these mal-behaving and many times political-criminal Afrikaner-leaders to book but failed by own free-will and own agendas to do something on it. Present-day revenge for apartheid is too late and only reflects political-immaturity and barbaric cognitive functioning. To be totally unchained from apartheid’s shame, victimisation and revenge, many of the present-day quite innocently but blame-loaded Afrikaners, will only really be free when their old-guard of troublemaking NP-AB-DRC leaders has passed away. That can takes time.

There are always two sides to a coin, but in battles and wars the winners are always seen as the innocents and the only victims who need justified compensation and revenge. The winners do not often take responsibility for their mistakes. The Afrikaner has been paraded as the losers ever since 1994. Their mistakes have been screened to the world, while the stained history of the Blacks remain hidden.7,43,141-144

Discrimination, whether driven by race, ethnicity or just common jealousy, has existed from the start of humanity. Fighting it and coping with it was one of the main reasons for the development of the world’s many religions. Still, notwithstanding all these doctrines and millions of prayers to heal racism and ethnic prejudices, it persists. Today all forms of discrimination are still with us everywhere during every moment, and it will be there forever, because it has been incurable thus far. Discrimination is not unique to the Afrikaners; it is also an inherent part of the Black mindset. Derrick Bell18, p. 119 describes racism in mankind very effectively when he says that it is “an integral, permanent and indestructible component of society.”

In light of its permanency it is of utmost importance that governments treat allegations and assumptions of racism, ethnicity and discrimination with wisdom. One-sided discriminations created by subjective TRC’s with their false findings and reconciliations must be avoided at all cost. It only led to racial discrimination like AA, BEE, EE, RET, RST and various poor judicial verdicts against Whites in the past to make examples of them. In the hands of robust governmental leaders, opinion-makers and officials, these outcomes can have a devastating effect on minority groups.

Degrading behaviours towards the Afrikaner since 1994 makes his stay in South Africa unnecessarily stressful and hastens the dissolution of the group. It only awakens the Herodotus Rules for revenge and complicates racial affairs further. It is a process that can gobble up the ANC itself at the end.37

The current emphasis on the Afrikaners from the side of a minority of Black politicians does not have to be a death sentence. But, these hardliners can, depending who obtains the political power in the near future of South Africa, have a devastating effect on the vicious cycle of revenge and counter-revenge around apartheid. Thankfully the majority of Black South Africans have made peace with their past and have obtained true reconciliation in 1994 and are trying to steer the country to success. It is time that the still aggrieved group of Blacks and Whites in South Africa sit down, sort out their racial troubles, injustices and hate, and face the present and future realities, not the past. For such reconciliation they do not need another TRC, they only need openness, honesty and true goodwill.101,145-148

The journalist and radio-presenter, Andile Khumalo, writes about the meaning of the quote “insanity” in the daily life of South African as follows151, p. 11:

Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous use the phrase to highlight the need for drug or alcohol abusers to consciously break habits to become fully rehabilitated. The logic is that while it is normal to try specific interventions to solve serious problems such as addition, it borders on stupidity to repeatedly trial an intervention that has not yielded results.

We‘ve had two decades of this “lovey-dovey” approach. It clearly hasn’t worked.

It is time that we take the first step towards rehabilitation of our enslaved minds. We must accept we have a problem. Our problem is that we are insane.

Are all South Africans really insane, starting up in 1652 till today? If Khumalo is correct with his diagnosis, he is the first to describe successfully the reason for South Africans’ unquenchable strive, as individuals or as groups, to obtain economical, political, social, ethnic and racial supremacy over each other for more than three centuries. He rooted clearly why insecurity and conflict are constantly reflected in South Africans daily existence. But most of all, he possibly declares at last the reason for the country’s Black-White syndrome of domination and discrimination. Insane or not, Khumalo offers good advice to them: it is time that all South Africans accept their problem and start their own rehabilitation for political and racial sanity.151

Black and White South Africans need each other in many, many ways, now and in the future. They can cooperate, even though a totally new South African culture and political dimension and domain are needed. For such a positive outcome they need to follow the wise words of the well-known South African publisher, Jonathan Ball, when he said152, p. 13: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.” Do Black and White South Africans have the will to write a new history that will reflect happy cooperation? If the Afrikaner wants to avoid dissolution in a century from now, it is very important that they strive to reach this aim.

Schlemmer relates the following incident that aptly captures the problem addressed in this article1, p. 7: “At a press conference held in Dakar, Senegal during the July 1987 visit by a number of South Africans to meet the ANC (African National Congress) representatives, a senior ANC member took exception to a remark by a South African academic that ‘apartheid’ had developed over centuries of South African history. Whether this was true or not, the ANC member retorted, one should not let the apartheid government ‘off the hook’ ”.

The Schlemmer1 quotation illustrates two things, namely who the culprits were that created apartheid and the fact that there was a history that resulted in apartheid. First, no-one in South Africa, not even the ‘culprits’ who created apartheid, the Afrikaners, deny that the Whites in South Africa for many years dominated and discriminated against the Blacks: politically, economically, socially and culturally. Apartheid at its height was sustained by a certain class of Afrikaners and the connections they had among them. Its structure was upheld by political, economical, social and cultural institutions and bureaucracies that were controlled and run by Afrikaner men and women from this social class. Even during apartheid, not all Afrikaners dominated and discriminated against Blacks to them same extent, although they were all complicit. Vilakazi explains this poignantly when he says2, p. 43: “Some Afrikaners exercise domination directly and harshly; other exercise it still directly, but more ‘pleasantly’ and ‘kindly’; some exercise it indirectly, but still harshly; while still others exercise it indirectly, with sophistication and even ‘friendship’ for Blacks. All this depends on the class backgrounds of the Whites concerned, and the institutions within which they make their living within the huge edifice of racial domination. The distinctions later give rise to differences in political orientations – to conservatives, liberals, radicals, etc.”

It is clear from the above that apartheid was practice by all “social classes” in the Afrikaner grouping, with the emphasis on the leadership and the ordinary citizens who identified as nationalist Afrikaners as represented by their membership of the National Party (NP), the Afrikaner Broederbond (AB) and the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC).3-8

The last part of the 1987 comment of the ANC senior member, as quoted by Schlemmer, namely that1, p. 7: “one should not let the apartheid government ‘off the hook’”, is completely justified. This remark should have added “one should not let the apartheid government, and all the ordinary nationalist Afrikaners and members of the NP-AB-DRC off the hook.” All the various social groups within the larger Afrikaner grouping are guilty of the practice of apartheid, as Vilakatzi2 also argues. They all benefited, either directly or indirectly, and they were all role players in this system, however much some try to hide behind an array of excuses. This collective responsibility is a fact and is accepted by the majority of Afrikaners today. It is within this broad context of collective responsibility that Blacks today tend to label all Afrikaners as participants in apartheid and as the people at whom they direct their revenge for apartheid since 1994 (successfully one might add). This outcome of “collective guilt” shared by all Afrikaners has been used since 1994 to drive the ANC regime’s unspoken policy of revenge on Afrikaners for apartheid specifically and for all the ANC’s own governmental failures in general. This revenge has an immense impact on the way Afrikaners think about the Blacks’ political behaviour, views and intentions. It only serves to strengthen their entrenched feelings about injustices done to them through racial and ethnic discrimination and domination in the past. There are now new added experiences of injustices done to them by the Blacks.1,2,9,10

The dynamic described above re-activates a set of behaviours that was instilled and entrenched in proto-Afrikaners and Afrikaners over many years, namely discrimination against Blacks based on colour. [Part 2 of this series discusses how this negative racial behaviour was instilled in Afrikaners and strengthening as “appropriate” and “correct” due to negative examples and experiences]. The immediate question at this stage is: what motivates and drives this sort of behaviour? In this context it seems that the cause of this learned and internalized behaviour is the perception of injustices done to him. This idea can stay passive and can be ignored, but it leads to counter-actions to revenge or defence in the form of various forms and levels of discriminative racial behaviour. The intention of this study is to research and describe the determinants and role players in the establishment and continuation of a perception of injustice in the mindset of the Afrikaner.

The second important point to note in Schlemmer’s1 quote is the reference to the history of Apartheid. Was the South African academic correct to remark at the Dakar meeting of 1987 that “‘apartheid’ had developed over centuries of South African history,” 1, p. 7 or is this a myth without any facts to prove it? In the post-1994 political rhetoric, very little attention is given to this controversy and to the possible negative impact of long-term exposure to undesirable behaviour and experiences on the development of the Afrikaner’s propensity to discriminate. Schlemmer makes the following comment1, p. 8: “Archetypal apartheid was developed to its epitome in the period under Verwoerd. It represented a brutal, massive but almost heroic attempt on the part of the then ethnically solidary National Party of the time to secure a correspondence between nation and territory for whites by imposing an order much more incisive than race segregation,” Such statements have led to a denial of an earlier history. Schlemmer’s1 focuses exclusively on 1960 to 1994. Discussions like this completely ignore the immense negative impact of the history before apartheid on the racist behaviours of the, sometimes unwilling, proto-Afrikaner and later Afrikaner as participants in the system. This point of view is used selectively by some subjective researchers and poorly informed politicians to justify the new South Africa’s over-emphasis on political correctness. It has led to superficial arguments and myths that apartheid is a recent phenomenon created only by nationalist Afrikaners. It also brings to the foreground allegations that the Afrikaners’ racial attitudes are pathological and set, ignoring the effect of external influences on behaviour learning and the reinforcement of problematic behaviour. Research that denies a history that culminated in apartheid fits well with the post-1994 political and emotional rhetoric, especially since any consideration or discussion of history by Black politicians seem to be fixated on the period of Grand Apartheid (1960–1994) for obvious political gain. This “conscious” amnesia is understandable and is also reflected in the “selective” amnesia of Black politicians about their catastrophic and barbarous “Black apartheid” and “Black genocide” between 1810 and 1840 in South Africa.1,2,10,11

The fact is that White racial domination and discrimination against Blacks have a long history, dating from the early Cape Colonists up to the proto-Afrikaners and culminating in the modern-day Afrikaner’s history. Historically, social-cum-racial class differentiation already took shape in 1671 at the Cape Settlement. Whites were favoured and the other races were subjected to discrimination. This differentiation and resulting discrimination continued throughout the centuries, creating a generally unfavourable position for all darker races in the broader society. It started in 1671 and sometimes had the same devastating consequences for non-Whites, if not more, than grand apartheid. However, apartheid can comfortably be criticized in the modern idiom of human rights violations and it is very easily pinpointed as the root of all evil in South Africa. The proto-Afrikaners were and the Afrikaners are still part of this ongoing history of apartheid that started in 1671. A focused study is needed to understand the ordinary Afrikaner’s ideas on race and the reasons why they supported, subscribed to, and practiced apartheid for so many years. Such a study should steer clear of the current political and emotional rhetoric. Such a study will also open the door for insight into and an evaluation of the Afrikaner’s perception that many kinds of injustices have been and are being committed against him (and this leads to their inclination to racial discrimination).3-8

Although this article does not delve into the history of apartheid, specific and direct historical causes are noted. (The history was already fully described in Part 2 of the series: Historical determinants and role players in the establishment and maintenance of racial discrimination in the mindsets of Afrikaners. Its subdivision 3.1.1: Negative ethnic and racial influences of the Early Cape authorities, is relevant to this article). From this history it is clear that apartheid has a long historical development in which the proto-Afrikaner, and even to a certain extent also the Afrikaner, were not initially volunteers, but victims themselves. They too were subjected to a bad and inappropriate socio-political system that was forced on them involuntary. The proto-Afrikaner and Afrikaner were not only exposed to bad racial examples that became entrenched in Afrikaners over time, but that they also experienced immensely negative consequences as a direct outcome of infringements perpetrated against them. These negative experiences became entrenched as an obsession with the injustices they suffered. Not only did these ideas lead to racist behaviours, but they also reinforced established racism and behaviours of revenge. Part 2 concludes that Afrikaners hold the specific belief that injustices were not only done to them in the past, but are being done to them today. It is therefore important to know how this perception of injustices took root in the mindset of Afrikaners.3-8, 12

The intention of this article is to study and analyse the present and past negative determinants and role players in the establishment and reinforcement of a perception of injustices in the mindsets of Afrikaners.

This article is the third in a series of seven. The seven articles represent the following research topics:1) Who is the Afrikaner? 2) Historical determinants and role players in the establishment and maintenance of racial discrimination in the mindsets of Afrikaners; 3) Present and past determinant and role players in the establishment and continuation of perceptions of injustices in the mindsets of Afrikaners; 4) The Afrikaners’ failure to understand, accept and become intertwined in the indigenous realities of South Africa; 5) The vicious cycle of revenge and counter-revenge around apartheid; 6) Preparedness and comprehensiveness of post-1994 rescue actions; 7) 2017 is the year for thinking, planning and action.

The overarching aim of the study is to determine the position of the Afrikaner in the year 2117.

Method

The research was done by means of a literaturereview. This method aims to build a viewpoint based on evidence as the evidence becomes clearer throughout the research. This approach is used in modern historical research where there is a lack of an established library, as is the case with the topic of the Afrikaner’s current and future position in South Africa. The databases used were EBSCOHost, Sabinet Online. Sources included articles from 2016 to 2017, books for the period 1944 to 2017, and newspapers for the period 2016 to 2017. These sources were used to reflect on the Afrikaners and to put thought trends, views and opinions on the Afrikaners in perspective.13-15

The research findings are presented in narrative format.

Results and discussion

3.1 General perspective

Many Afrikaners argue that their living standard is deteriorating in the new South Africa due to job discrimination and unemployment resulting from Affirmative Action (AA), Employment Equity (EE) and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). Afrikaners are experiencing more general poverty. There are frequent murders, especially of farmers. This comes in addition to various other social, economical and political discriminations. Political rhetoric, public objections and court cases to protect Afrikaner interests are common. This discriminative Black behaviour has two decisive effects on the Afrikaners’ racial attitudes and inclinations: the reinforcement of established racism and the development of new negative racial attitudes. Fundamental to both these developments is the belief that an injustice is being done to them at present, as was the case in the past. They are experiencing hostile and hurtful behaviour that they believe is undeserved and inappropriate. The perception of injustice is in turn founded on a belief that revenge is an appropriate action.16-24

What is shocking about the post-1994 Afrikaner thought pattern is the lack of insight into the enormous social, economical, political and personal backlash for the Afrikaner in the new South Africa. The anti-Afrikaner attitudes of the ANC regime is nothing else than Black apartheid. It is to be expected when considering history. This reaction by Blacks must be understood in terms of the cruel legacy of White apartheid. Blacks had to endure an extremely negative political environment and lifestyle, not for decades, but for centuries. It was an inhumane setup that Schlemmer1, p. 8describes as a “brutal, massive order much more incisive than race segregation.” The pseudo-peace and the seemingly normal continuation of life immediately after 1994 faded fast with the NP and AB losing power and the increasingly aggressive ANC government. A significant sector of Blacks feels that the dispensation that started in 1994 did not punish the Afrikaners adequately for their mistakes. Initially the retreating leadership of the NP and AB promised a new and happy South Africa forever. This was an effort to appease the Afrikaners for the moment. Enormous changes awaited the Afrikaners, unbeknownst to them. For many years the NP-AB-DRC leaders concealed the fact that Afrikaners will face an unfriendly environment where they are stripped of their previous White apartheid empowerments and benefits. Some Afrikaners miss the fact that they are now dependent on themselves and on forming small groups. The formal guiding patrons have all disappeared. They are in this “alone” and they are in a hostile environment where they are subjected to “Black Discrimination,” more and more, making any appeal on their rights very difficult. The new and serious injustices against them seem to be gathering momentum.

The Afrikaners at present simply do not have the political power to stand up to the more dominant ANC at any level to ensure their future. The general attitude of the Black society is becoming more hostile. First, the current Afrikaner population of less than 3 million and the negative annual growth of approximately -0.1% from 1960 to 2011 shows that they are indeed a much less influential racial, ethnic and political pressure group than they would admit, especially compared to a Black population of more than 55 million and an approximate annual growth of +1.5% for 2009 to 2014. The decline in the is becoming more rapid, so much so that experts, supported by statistics, predict that the Afrikaners can disappear from the South African scene in 30 to 60 years. The disproportionate racial distribution and accompanying lack of political power largely explain the growing disrespect and discriminatory attitude of the ANC and their followers towards the Afrikaners since 1994. This is an attitude that can intensify in the future, bringing more injustice to the door of the Afrikaners.23,25-29

Second, it would be incorrect to see the attitude and behaviour of the ANC and the Blacks in general towards the Afrikaners as based only on the Afrikaners’ diminished political position as a White minority, which makes them an easy target. It goes much deeper: an age-old hatred has been activated after extreme suffering due to racial discrimination and apartheid. Blacks and other racial groups in South Africa suffered psychologically, politically and economically at the hand of proto-Afrikaners and Afrikaners. The negative reactions to and behaviours towards the Afrikaners from the side of the ANC and the other racial groups in South Africa originate from the Herodotus Rules that guide good governance. Afrikaners as rulers blindly and arrogantly ignored these rules in the heyday of apartheid.6,19,30,31

An understanding of these rules will aid in an understanding of today’s “Black Apartheid,” as practiced by the ANC through policies such as AA, EE and BEE [knowing in the USA as Minority Procurement, which in South African implies Majority Procurement or Majority Affirmative Action] and through other racial discriminations against the Afrikaners. It will also provide Afrikaners with some insight into how counter-productive and fatal it is to see these Black discriminative actions against them as justifying counter racial discrimination and actions to balance out the injustices.

Modern Afrikaners only became victims of “Black apartheid” after 1994. They are exposed to experiences that make them feel as if injustices are being committed against them. In actual fact, they got off scot-free after the Black discrimination between 1948 and 1994. However, it is important to note that the proto-Afrikaners from the early 1700s up to 1902 and the Afrikaners from 1902 up to 1948 experienced numerous forms of domination and discrimination against them. This instilled a mentality of being subject to injustice. These current and past experiences of injustices are and were strong determinants in inspiring new and reinforcing old negative racial attitudes amongst Afrikaners, leading to further racial discrimination in the new South Africa.3-8

3.1.1 The Herodotus Rules for good governance and respect

More than 2 500 years ago, the ancient historian Herodotus formulated six rules for good governance. In his view, these rules guarantee a revenge-free country of peace for current and future generations. These six rules provide an excellent explanation of the attitudes of the ANC towards the Afrikaners since 1994.30,31

Herodotus reasoned that any ruler should adhere to six rules to stay in power, to lead a long and happy life as a ruler and to prevent reprisals and retaliation against him and his descendants and followers from aggrieved subordinates or conquered groups and their descendants. The six rules that a ruler should underwrites, practices and respect are31:

Given the power of a ruler, avoid and be free of power mismanagement and emotional and physical exploitation, abuse and misuse of one’s subjects.

In practice, these six rules come down to the following: 1). history repeats itself; and 2). that the contraventions of these rules create hatred that spells tragedy for culprits, even after many centuries had passed.31

The Herodotus Rules acknowledges that the innocent are sometimes punished for the failures and shortcomings of their ancestors (much in line with the Mafia of Sicily’s habit to take revenge on families even after many generations have passed, whether the new generation is guilty or not). A poignant example is the genocide of the Jews in Europe during WW2 because their ancestors were falsely identified as financial and political exploiters by the local citizens of the countries to which they had migrated. In reality, these locals merely failed to be competitive, trained and skilled so that they could be successful in their businesses and professional lives.31,33

The various Afrikaner regimes since 1910, especially those between 1948 and 1994, transgressed all six the Herodotus rules. The current inaccessibility and hostility of the ANC and the Blacks are predictable political, psychological and pathological responses within the framework of the Herodotus philosophy of 1) misrule by the ruler and 2) undeserved punishment for the innocent victim, 3) injustice done to the victim and 4) revenge by the victim for the misruling of the ruler and injustice done.31 The Afrikaner has in the minds of the Blacks been sentenced to long-term political and personal, social and economical “imprisonment” in South Africa for contravening the Herodotus rules, whether the individual Afrikaner is guilty or not. This is the result of the proto-Afrikaner and Afrikaner’s political, socio-economical and inhumane misconduct as a ruler over many years. 31

The Afrikaner should blame themselves and the failed Afrikaner leadership that they elected to act on their behalf for this penalty. The tragedy is that this “sentence” is a logical and expected historically outcome the Afrikaner seems not to understand, to have expected, or to know how to counter. The retaliation according to the Herodotus rules affects all modern Afrikaners and its youth, even though many of them were not part of the practice of apartheid. Many Blacks feel that they may take revenge for apartheid, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the current generation. This, in terms of the Herodotus rules, starts a new cycle where Afrikaners experience their society as unjust, triggering further negative attitudes towards Blacks.3-8

3.2 Current injustices committed against Afrikaners

3.2.1 The long-term punitive intentions of the ANC and the continuation of injustices

The ANC’s revenge clearly entails more than just a short-term punishment of the Afrikaners for apartheid in terms of the Herodotus Rules. It is aimed at the total expulsion, psychologically and physically, of the Afrikaner (although hidden and mostly denied publically) from the country as an ethnic racial group or at totally isolating them from the educational, economic and cultural mainstream. (This is a properly orchestrated exercise and reminds one of the Afrikaner’s own expulsion of Blacks from central South Africa to various Bantu homelands under the Malan/Strydom/Verwoerd regimes. These actions show the negative effect of the Herodotus Rules in justified revenge). 3-8,31

Several factors favour the ANC in its adventure of a long-term punishment for the Afrikaner. These negative factors include the negative population growth of the Afrikaner, the Afrikaner’s fear of residential and farm murders, increasing White poverty and job discrimination, fear of radical economical transformation and White capital and land capture, the closing down of Afrikaner institutions like schools and universities, disrespect for Afrikaans as a national language, political confusion and a loss of sovereignty that is casting many Afrikaners out of the governing system. This ongoing racial and ethnic victimization and discrimination against the Afrikaners, especially as a “colonial” minority group, influence many to eventually leave their birth and/or adopted homeland. This is evident from the fact that nearly 1.2 million (30%) Afrikaners left South Africa in the last 20 years since 1995, while a further 35% (1.35 million) also wish to emigrate in the near future.25-27

The punitive intentions of the ANC regime was and is exacerbated by the fact that most Afrikaners decided to radically oppose the ANC after 1994, openly showing their distrust, hostility and aggression against Black rule and a Black majority government. This negativism was not only exhibited towards the ANC as a political party, but frequently towards the Black majority in general. In retrospect this decision seems to have been a fatal error in terms of planning their future, as was the introduction of apartheid. It seems as if the proto-Afrikaners and the Afrikaners are inclined to saddle the “wrong political horses” over and over. This fatal decision in 1994 terminated all possible sympathy and support for the Afrikaners by the Black majority and any hope of a future intimate partnership with and support of the ANC or one of the other Black political parties. The fear of and reaction against Blacks and Black rule, entrenched in Afrikaners over many centuries, and the actions to counter-act any endangerment of their interests, only strengthened the resolve of the ANC and the Blacks. They are themselves driven by the injustices done to them by the Afrikaners. They want to apply the Rules of Herodotus to the Afrikaners.30,31

The ancient historical work of John Moschos34 (The Spiritual Meadow) and the modern historical works of William Dalrymple30 (A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium), Ryszard Kapuściński31(Travel with Herodotus) and that of Niall Ferguson33(The World at War), illustrate how these counter-discriminations as revenge for injustices and wrong-doings (and much in line with the current revenges of the ANC on the Afrikaners) take the form of expulsions and deadly annihilations globally from ancient times to modern times.

Good examples of such expulsions and annihilations are those of the Christian Armenians and Suniani in Islamic Turkey and the Christian Greeks in Islamic Egypt between 1900 and today. It is also echoed in the destruction of 210 Armenian monasteries, 700 convents and churches and 1 639 parish churches from 1914 in Eastern Turkey (total: 2 549 buildings). Sixty years later, in 1974, only 449 (18%) of the buildings were still in use by active members. The Suniani tribe in Eastern Turkey decreased from nearly 200 000 in the 1900s, to 70 000 in 1920, 4 000 in 1990 and only 900 in 1998. The expulsion also happened to the Greeks in Egypt. In the 1900s they were 200 000, in 1988 they were 5 000 and in 1998, only 500.30,31

The eradication of the Armenian identity started in Turkey with the replacement of the names of their towns and streets with Turkish names. This was followed by the destruction of Armenian cemeteries, even tombstones, and the conversion of their churches into mosques. The Armenians who did not move house, were forced to adopt Turkish and Islam names for survival.30,31

.

The Afrikaners have also experienced 1994 similar punitive actions against them. They are losing traditional work opportunities in the civil services, at tertiary institutions and business enterprises. The policies of AA, BEE and EE are intensified almost on a daily basis, while their educational institutions are being “Africanised”. The boundaries of their personal, political, economical and social environments are deliberately transgressed. They are threatened with the capture of capital and land without compensation. There is a growing rhetoric to take arms against Whites who resist the radical transformation, the names of traditional Afrikaner villages, towns and cities have been replaced with Black names. The same is happening with the names of streets and public buildings with Afrikaner names. They are also targeted in terms of criminality in their daily lives.21,22,35,36

The above injustices to Afrikaners are growing, putting them in conflict with the ANC and the Black population more and more. However, their political and military empowerment is zero, making it impossible for them to do anything constructive. These threats (and powerlessness of Afrikaners) create a vicious circle of constant experiences of abuses and maltreatments in many different areas of their lives. Afrikaners experience these actions as injustices. An important development that Afrikaners seem to deny is the reality that the intensity and number of assumed injustices will increase fast from 2017. The other point that Afrikaners seem to miss is that these injustices they are experiencing at the hand of the ANC are equal to the injustices that they measured out indiscriminately to Blacks over many years. This leaves the question if they can claim that these injustices are wrong and whether they are not “justified” revenge in terms of the Herodotus Rules. Is the Afrikaner not just over-sensitive and selfish about upholding their assumed Afrikaner rights and their false belief in their racial supremacy, thing that do not really fit into a modern democracy? 21,22,35,36

Ignoring the possible merits of revenge as a point of discussion, it is clear that these assumed maltreatments by the ANC government and politicians have an immensely negative impact on Afrikaners, specifically on their perception of the integrity and trustworthiness of Blacks as a race and the feeling that it is impossible to live side by side in a civilized manner in South Africa. The direct outcome is that the Afrikaners entrenched ideas of racial discrimination and injustices are strengthened, instead of fading away. The foundation is being laid for new negative racial cognitions and new injustices in the mindsets of Afrikaners.10,21,22,35,36

3.2.2 The future dilemmas of the Afrikaner in South Africa in terms of citizenship

In South Africa, apart from the shocking farm murders, extreme radical and massive ethnic and racial aggressions and unrests have thankfully been avoided thus far. If the increasing xenophobic behaviour against foreign fellow-Africans, the recent unrests at Coligny and Lichtenburg against Afrikaners’ property and lives, the increasingly radical speeches of the ANC regime and other Black political leaders and political parties and the open disregard for the Constitution and the judicial authority and system are taken into account, the Afrikaners can expect radical aggression in the near future. The official calls by the ANC and other Black role players for radical economical transformation and the capture of White capital, land and property especially sound warning bells. The consequences can be massive injustices to the Afrikaners in the near future, leading to an escalation in negative racial attitudes and reactive behaviour by the Afrikaners to counter the growing injustices against them. This can even end in physical conflict, an outcome that will spell genocide for the disempowered Afrikaners. What is clear at this stage is that the Afrikaners are certainly not exempt from more emotional and physical aggression in the future, a fact that they must seriously consider.16,18,22,36-41

The growing need for basic resources and the intense competition for it to counter dire poverty among South African Blacks is being ignored by politicians. It is a possible stimulus for conflict with and the maltreatment of the Afrikaners and could result in further negative experiences that they can see as injustices to them. Up to 1994 the Blacks, as competitors of the Afrikaners, were comprehensively nullified on all levels by the rules of the apartheid. The immense poverty of Blacks and their dire life circumstances was psycho-pathologically ignored by the Afrikaner regime. With specific racially discriminative planning, it was even intentionally aggravated. After 1994, the Afrikaners, stripped of their many privileges and economical manipulation, became equal competitors with the impoverish masses of Blacks. In the new South Africa the ANC’s AA, EE and BEE did not at all help the approximately 70% of the total Black population out of their tragic poverty. This situation is making the competition for sources and support systems extraordinary intense, especially when the race factor comes into play. 16,18,22,36-41

The dire state of need in which many Blacks in South Africa still live can possibly lead to further disempowerment of Afrikaners in an effort to eliminate the competition. The continuous poverty of the mass of Black can at the same time lead to physical aggression and genocide of the Afrikaners. This kind of scapegoat behaviour had tragic consequences for the Jews in Europe in the 1930s and the Belgium population in the Congo in the 1960s, basically because of the large-scale poverty of the indigenous people and their inability to escape from it immediately. On the other hand the mob oratories and instigations by German and Belgium Black politicians and leaders respectively to act against Jews and Congolese Whites to rectify alleged injustices of the past through the capture of Jewish and White capital and property undoubtedly drove the impoverished Germans and Africans of Belgium to murder and genocide. A critical perspective shows that the impoverished position of South African Blacks do not differ much from the Germans of the 1930s or the Belgium Blacks of 1960 in the Congo.33,42,43

The current estimated 350 000 to 400 000 poor Whites in South Africa and up to 150 000 Afrikaners struggling for survival (when evaluated in terms of the present value of the South Africa rand and the immense constant increases in the prices of foodstuffs and living costs in 2016, this can even be an underestimation), is of secondary importance in conflict activation. It is no comparison to the masses of non-Whites living below the poverty line. The extreme poverty of non-White groups in South Africa can stimulate direct conflict between Blacks and Whites to such a degree that it can result genocide. In this regard it is estimated (which is an underestimation) that as many as 29 236 632 Blacks (73.0%), 2 175 417 Coloureds (48.1%) and 150 409 (11.8%) Indians live in poverty. The official statistics, which reflects that only 26.6% of the population is unemployed, is misleading when one considers that only 42.8% of the total population is employed in some way and that the youth unemployment is 53.7%, of whom most are Blacks (this means that 57.2% of the total South African population are not in employment and as much as only 46.3% of the youths are employed). To expect that only 6 million middle class Blacks and their new-found wealth would counter future revolt and anarchy is wishful thinking. Any strategist who specializes in political and social conflict, revolution and genocide would confirm that these statics describe a huge time bomb waiting to explode. It is a recipe for human disaster that would overshadow all the current moans of injustice against the Afrikaners.3,4,42,44-48

A prominent question at this stage for the less than 3 million Afrikaners who are struggling at present to get political, social, economical and ethnic recognition and to maintain their unique culture and ways of living, is what will happen 100 years from now in 2117 to a very insignificant minority group of Afrikaners under an authoritarian ANC or other Black regime or an otherwise overwhelming, totally impoverished Black majority in South Africa?

If the expulsions of the Greeks and Suniani from their adopted homelands over 100 years are taken as guidelines, there will only between 10 000 and 20 000 “pure” Afrikaners left in South Africa in 2117, as opposed to an estimated 100 plus million Black people with their own political, economic and cultural attitudes and lifestyles. If the constant population decline among Afrikaners is used as another guideline, the chance is good that there will be between 300 000 and 1 million Afrikaners left in 2047 and fewer than 10 000 “pure” Afrikaners in South Africa in 2117.30,49

Afrikaners should realize that the injustices – true or false, justified or unjustified – done by the ANC government and its Black partners, will increase and become more complex and directed. To revenge or to rectify these injustices through direct military, public or private actions, will be impossible for the declining Afrikaners. The end result can be terrorist actions, a path followed by minority groups worldwide, like in Northern Ireland, Syria and Turkey, sometimes with tragic outcomes.

3.3 Past injustices to the Afrikaner▼

To see the 1994 dispensation and its current negative outcomes as the second “Slagtersnek” in Afrikaner history and as a doomsday in their lives, is wrong. The proto-Afrikaners and the later Afrikaners went through at least two other “Slagternek” incidents before, challenging their future as a population in South Africa. Over many years they have became very familiar with the abuse of power by hostile authorities and what it means to stay upright in such a constant struggle where injustices becomes absolutely overwhelming. They know the enormous psychological and financial efforts and dedication needed to outlive such an ordeal.6, 8-10, 19

▲Cross-references: see Part 2, subdivision 3.1.3.

3.3.1 Fifty years of British Rule: 1806 to 1854

Although all the stages of the proto-Afrikaner development were characterized by conflicts and constant onslaughts on his existence since 1652, it seems to be the British Rule of 1806 to 1854 that first brought him in open revolt, culminating in the Great Trek to escape many unsolved injustices. One clear fact that stands out here was the British intent to apply British enculturation to the proto-Afrikaners to suppress their political and personal identity. In 1811 there was the “Black Circuit” (Swarte Ommegang), a period during which court cases were opened against 50 farmers and their families based on various allegations of serious crimes, including murder. The allegations were brought by the Hottentotte and other non-Whites. Although the cases were mostly found to be false, the intentions of the British authority and of the missionaries creating these allegations, brought bitterness into the minds of the proto-Afrikaners. The existing racism and ethnocentrism in the Afrikaners were not only strengthened, but broadened to include the British and the other racial groups. The Afrikaners experienced vivid emotions of injustice and transgression. It was also the start of public resistance by small sectors of proto-Afrikaners, like the Frederik Bezuidenhout revolt and conflict, which not only led to death, but also to the hanging of four Boers at Slagtersnek, Graaff-Reinet in 1815.6, 8-10, 19,32,50

This extraordinary abuse of judicial and political power by the British authorities created negative memories that made reconciliation with the British impossible as early as 1815. The British wanted to issue a warning and make an example so that the proto-Afrikaners would behave in the British system, without allowing them to have a say or to make an impact on the political system of the Cape. It created strong fears of injustices in their belief system, especially around their personal identity and safety. It cemented in the mindsets of Afrikaners the growing perception of wide-spread, intense and focused injustices done to them: injustices that they were not empowered to rectify with direct action against the British, but that they rectified indirectly with the Great Trek. The Voortrekkers carried this negative attitude of hate and the perception of injustices directed at the British and the non-Whites, who were directly responsible for their unhappy and unstable lives at the Cape, into Natal, Transvaal, and the Free State. The Slagtersnek incident stands out even today as a the first sign of the later crimes against humanity to be committed in the Second Anglo-Boer War by the British Empire in Transvaal and the Free State against the Boers and their families. These were injustices that brought great division between the Northern and the Southern Afrikaners.6, 8-10, 19,32,50

The many other autocratic and anti-Boer actions of the British authority at the Cape between 1806 and 1836 were aimed at subduing the proto-Afrikaners. They especially wanted to phase out all Dutch influences. They wanted to Anglicized the proto-Afrikaners, starting in 1813 with the civil services, the introduction English into the Afrikaner churches in 1826 by forcing them to accept Scottish Presbyterian ministers, forcing them to accept English-speaking teachers and the establishment of free English Schools in 1822. In 1825, English became the court language, while in 1827 a legal charter was published to replace the Dutch legal system that was in use since 1652 at the Cape. A further act to minimize the Afrikaner cultural and their numbers was the 1820 migration of British Settlers to South Africa.7,10, 19,32

In 1816 the British started with a process to emancipate the slaves, first by formally registering them and then by regulating workdays by 1823. This was followed by the appointment of a Slave Protector and an assistant to oversee that the proto-Afrikaners behaved towards their slaves. In 1836 slavery was ended. The outcome of the emancipation of the slaves financially ruined many farmers, especially those in the country side. The proto-Afrikaners was at this time already split into subgroups like the Grensboers and the Trekboers, showing clear ethno-cultural and racial differences with the more British-orientated and liberal Cape Dutch. For the rural proto-Afrikaners the consequences were immense: not only was the rural proto-Afrikaners financially ruined by the little compensation for their freed slaves by the British, but they were also suddenly a White minority in a region populated by a majority of non-Whites outside their control and equal in status. Their opportunities to prosper in this environment and to establish their identity was blocked. Most of all, their clear differentiation of Christian versus heathen, as well as White versus Coloured, were suddenly shattered. Large numbers of unemployed and landless freed slaves started roaming the country side, make rural areas dangerous. 7,9,10, 19,32

This outcome further complicated the government’s failed attempts at managing the “Black- and Hottentot-questions” and to guarantee the future safety to the proto-Afrikaners on their farms. The proto-Afrikaner’s opinions, personal, political and economical interests, safety and future existence as citizens were also totally ignored. The proto-Afrikaner became a stranger in a new British colony, making the fear of a next Slagtersnek and of their dissolution as a population, acute. Life in the country side became very difficult, making the proto-Afrikaners more desperate by the day. The racial confrontations that highlighted the immense cultural and lifestyle differences between the races also laid the foundation for the Grensboers’ and Trekboers’ perception of deliberate injustices against them. This resulted in apartheid later on. The proto-Afrikaners felt that the injustices against them were mounting, and they had no voice or power as long as they were under British authority.7,9,10,19,32

To uphold their identity, culture, language and freedom in the face of the constant growing hostility and insensitive liberal race policy of the British authority, whose sole intention was to subdue the Afrikaners and the growing “black danger”, the proto-Afrikaners needed an escape route. In the end they were left with only one solution: the Great Trek northwards to vast unpopulated areas without an oppressive British government. In this context it is understandable why the new republics of Natal, Transvaal and Free State were established with three clear characteristics: total self-rule and a total distaste for the British Empire and racial integration. The basis for all these outcomes was the Afrikaners’ perception of enormous injustices done to them; injustices that took the backseat for a while in the republics.6-10,32

3.3.2 British government policy in the Transvaal and Free State between 1902 and 1906

The immediate post-1902 period after the Anglo Boer War brought immense hardships for the Boers of the disbanded Republics of Transvaal and the Free State. Suddenly they were forced to be British citizens inside a domain of the British Empire and thus under the Union Jack and a king, namely Eduard VII. This was precisely what they had fled so eagerly from the Cape Colony in the 1830s, but in the end all in vain.6-10, 32

However, a hell of injustices was still waiting for the Boers in the new British Transvaal and Free State. The worst happened after the reconfiguration of the old republics as British Colonies: the heartless and the intolerant Lord Alfred Milner, who was the instigator of the whole war and the main cause of the Boers’ suffering, downfall and disgrace, became the chief leader in charge of rebuilding the old republics. It was clear from day one that only British interests would be served, especially when considering the repatriation and the compensation for the Boers and his negative public views on the Boers. British mine owners were promoted and supported, while the numbers of the Black workers at Johannesburg mines were accelerated, ignoring the impoverished Boers’ views on race and keeping them from work opportunities. Milner had one main focus and interest, namely the total Anglicization of the Boers and the influx of British immigrants to outnumber the Boers and Afrikaners in South Africa as fast as possible.6-10, 32

Milner’s intent to Anglicize the Afrikaners is evident from his correspondents to the British government on 8 November 1901 where he reflects that there were 368 000 English Whites in South Africa compared to 496 000 Afrikaans Whites. His intention was to boost British numbers to 615 000 against 544 000 Afrikaners in five years to obtain a ratio of three British against two Afrikaners to assure a permanent British majority in South Africa. He wanted to do this through immigration from Britain and the placement of British soldiers and others who had fought in the war into the Civil Service, industries and on farms. The situation for the Boers in Transvaal under Milner became such chaos and so unbearable that JC Smuts referred to the period 1902 to 1906 as “the darkest time in the history of Transvaal, much worse than the bloodshed of the War itself”.6,32

It is undoubtedly true that the Boers and their families of the old Republics of Transvaal and Free State were totally devastated after the war, not only financial but also psychologically. Husbands had to start their lives without their wives, mourning their children lost in the concentration camps. Even General Smuts said himself in 1902 that “South Africa was demolished and that he had seen no light for the future.” It was clear to him that very few Afrikaners still believed in law and justice after their ordeal at the hands of the British. Even the Lord Milner, the brain behind the British war effort, confessed when visiting Western Transvaal after the war that the country had “become a total wreck, a heart-broken sight to see.” The treatment that the Boers received from the British after the war on various terrains only served to strengthen their psychological political dislike for the British Empire and for non-Whites. It was an all-out policy of injustice against them, one that drove the Afrikaners’ racial attitudes in an extreme direction, basically up to 1994. For the Boers this became a direct motivation for more and new kinds of racial discriminations as ways to safeguard their future political and social rights in a hostile South Africa.6-10, 32

The disgraced and demolished Afrikaners were by no means uplifted after 1906. They only overcame this third Slagtersnek because of a unique and dynamic Afrikaner leadership with vision and integrity. These leaders took up the plight of the Afrikaners and steered them back to self-respect by means of psychological and financial upliftment. Prominent leaders were Louis Botha, Koos de la Rey, Barry Hertzog, Christiaan de Wet, Jan Smuts, Christiaan Beyers, Schalk Burger, Abraham Fisher and others. However, the early injustices of 1902 to 1906 remained in the psyche of Afrikaners, driving their racial inclinations, attitudes and behaviour for many years to come, ending in grand apartheid.6,10, 32

3.3.3 The 1994 dispensation of unity

While their second Slagtersnek was avoided by the trek out of the Cape Colony and the founding of independent republics and the Boers of Transvaal and the Free State fought and mastered their third 1902-Slagtersnek guided by a wise Afrikaner leadership, the 1994 dispensation was brought on by a total lack of a sound Afrikaner leadership, a degrading morale and a political process that started in the 1970s and reached a climax in the late1980s. Where they had manifested vision, wise thinking, integrity, planning, and honesty in overcoming successfully their second and third Slagtersneks, most of the nationalist Afrikaners entrusted their political and personal future from the 1950s to 1994 to persons not always worthy of being called Afrikaners or Afrikaner leaders at all; persons totally incapable of leading a tribe through a new Slagtersnek, as the Afrikaner’s history after 1994 confirmed very well. No provision was made to accommodate and to steer the manifold new injustices against Afrikaners, as the present bitterness, insecurity and lack of direction of the Afrikaner’s shows.

The question is: can the Afrikaner again fight off his fourth Slagtersnek, notwithstanding the failed 1994 and present leadership? In this regard it must be noted that world politics, South African politics and human rights have changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Technology, science, lifestyles, habits, beliefs, socio-economics, future-thinking, traditions, group values, family life and demographic limitations have also changed dramatically; not only freeing the individual from group conformity, but also making it less necessary for people to be accommodated in close groups and to be guided by “sacred” leaders to survive in the future. Thankfully, most individual Afrikaners have started to make these changes of modernization; the collapse of the NP, the diminished role of the AB and the vague role of the DRC in the Afrikaner’s life confirms the process of Afrikaners departing from these three dominant, useless and most of all, aimless and racially contaminated groups. This new self-orientation and individuality increases the chances that the individual Afrikaner would be able to fight off his fourth Slagtersnek in new South Africa successfully. However, history tends to repeat not only the good of the past, but also the bad. Traumatic experiences are not easily erased from the human memory. Wrongdoings and injustices are entrenched over many years of suffering, exploitation, abuse and misuse. It is not only the Blacks who can rightly claim that they suffered discrimination and injustices at the hands of the Afrikaners via Afrikaner apartheid, the Afrikaners can also rightly claim that they suffer discrimination and injustices from the side of the Blacks via Black apartheid and in the past at the hand of the Dutch via Dutch colonial apartheid and by the British via British imperial apartheid. The experiences that Afrikaners had over the course of 300 years and the ideas this perpetuated blindly drove apartheid from 1948 to 1994. Racial injustices, etched into the memories of Afrikaners as well as Blacks, will still drive racism for many generations to come in South Africa. Any doubt? There is the Herodotus Rules to back this postulation.

Conclusion

It is clear that the proto-Afrikaner and later the Afrikaner were both exposed to serious life traumas, sometimes experienced over a short and extremely dramatic period, while other times gradually over the long-term. This has caused negative thought patterns to become established in the Afrikaner. For the Afrikaner these traumatic experiences stretched specifically from 1899 to 1902 through the Second Anglo Boer War and to a certain extent also from 1902 to 1948 again under British Imperialism, while for the proto-Afrikaner from 1671 to 1806 under authoritarian Dutch rule and from 1806 to 1902 under authoritarian British rule. It seems, in terms of a negative psychological impact, as if the discrimination in the period 1806 to 1902 is responsible for the most damage to the Afrikaner’s long-term psychological health. It became the breeding-ground for later extreme racial discrimination. The constant, long-term negative experiences of ethnic and racial discrimination and the lack of political power to defend themselves in this imbalanced set-up, clearly created a perception of being the victim of perpetual injustice in the psyche of the Afrikaner. Their reaction to this situation was to find an effective action to counter these daily and growing injustices and for their enemies’ intentions to annihilate them. There was only one way out, and that was to selfishly place themselves first in their daily behaviour, promoting their own interests and rights at all times, ignoring the consequences that such behaviour can have for other persons outside their group; specifically people from other racial groups and non-Afrikaner Whites. The apartheid to which he was exposed by the early Cape authorities was internalized as “good and acceptable” behaviour, but it also became the “correct” direct strategy to obtain and maintain their rights, integrity and most of all their identity. The Afrikaner’s apartheid was born, and the injustices that were done to them became the motivating power and the justification for the pursuit and maintenance of modern-day apartheid. There is no doubt that any injustice done to Afrikaners up to today is still steering their racial attitudes and behaviours.

The historical and political facts of the proto-Afrikaners and later Afrikaners, read together with the historical indicators focusing on the safekeeping of tribes and nations over many centuries, make it clear that the modern Afrikaners is in a crisis: politically, economically, sociologically, personally and psychologically. The powers of hostility against them are immense, overwhelming and overpowering. There is also, it seems, the unbreakable Herodotus curse on them. It seems as if the Afrikaner tribe is heading for dissolution within a century. The primary need at the moment for the Afrikaners, seen specifically from a psychological and political perspective, is to make their dissolution as painless and trauma-free as possible. For such an outcome, specific personal changes and strategies are needed, which are at present outside the Afrikaners frame of reference.

Be that as it may, one can ask if the Afrikaners could not perhaps, as the proto-Afrikaners successfully did three times before, overcome their 1994 Slagtersnek? Why not? Their emancipation from the NP-AB-DRC alliance and their new-found individuality offers them an escape route to overcome this 1994 trauma. This ideal can only be reached if they can lay to rest their obsession with the injustices done and being done to them. They have to clean their collective psyche of contaminated race attitudes and start anew as independent, freed South Africans.

Reaching the above outcome is not so easy and it would need extraordinary cleansing. As Palkhivala cautions51, p. 40: “Unfortunately, enmity and hatred persist among nations even after the root cause has been relegated to the limbo of forgotten past”. Speaking of the Schleswig-Holstein question of the 19th century and the forgotten reasons for the war around it, Lord Palmerston observed, “Only three people had ever understood it. One was dead. The other was in a lunatic asylum. I am the third and I have forgotten it.”

Although it seems best for individual Afrikaners not to know the real future brought on by their past, they may have no other choice in 2017 than to take a peek into the glass ball of hope in a last effort to prevent their obsession with the many injustices done to them to gobble up their future. Only in this way can Afrikaners hope to postpone their eminent demise as individuals and as a group. But do they, after so many years of exposure to negative political doctrines and the unlearning of independent thinking, still know how to take a peek?